WILLIAM R. PERKINS 
LIBRARY 


DUKE UNIVERSITY 


TONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


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TEXTBOOK EDITION 


THE CHRONICLES 
OF AMERICA SERIES 
ALLEN JOHNSON 
EDITOR 
GERHARD R. LOMER 


CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 
ASSISTANT EDITORS 


DANIEL BOONE IN THE CUMBERLAND GAP 


From the painting by C. W. Jefferys 


PIONEERS OF THE OLD 
SOUTHWEST 


A CHRONICLE OF THE 
DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 
BY CONSTANCE LINDSAY SKINNER 


| NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. 
r LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 

| OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 


1921 


| 
| 130978 
t 


Fe at ; : 


Copyright, 1919, by Yale 
c elie Wine | 


ie 


: ‘ X< pe } hited 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT ©: ~~ 


Tuis narrative is founded largely on original 
sources—on the writings and journals of pioneers 
and contemporary observers, such as Doddridge 
and Adair, and on the public documents of the 
period as printed in the Colonial Records and in 
the American Archives. But the author is, never- 
theless, greatly indebted to the researches of other 
writers, whose works are cited in the Bibliographi- 
cal Note. The author’s thanks are due, also, to 
Dr. Archibald Henderson, of the University of 
North Carolina, for his kindness in reading the 
proofs of this book for comparison with his own 
extended collection of unpublished manuscripts 
relating to the period. 

AEB CL. 


April, 1919. 


130978 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


DANIEL BOONE IN THE CUMBERLAND 
GAP 


From the painting by C. W. Jefferys. Frontispiece 
THE SOUTHERN TRANS-APPALACHIAN 
COUNTRY, 1750-1796 


Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- 
graphical Society. Facing page 


Xi 


56 


PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


CHAPTER I 
THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 


Tue Ulster Presbyterians, or “‘Scotch-Irish,”’ 

whom history has ascribed the dominant Heh 
among the pioneer folk of the Old Southwest, 
began their migrations to America in the latter 
years of oe call eee he century. It is not known 


with cer reci re_th 
immi ir race arrived in this country, 


but soon after were to be found in several 


of the colonies. It was not long, indeed, before 
they were entering in numbers at_the port of 
chief center of their_activities in New World. 


By 1726 they had established set in sever- 
al al counties behind Philadelphia. Ten years later 


Seas had begun their great trek southward through 
1 


2 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and on to the 
Yadkin.Valley of North Carolina) There they met 
others of their own race — bgld men like them- 
selves, hungry after land — who were coming in 
through Charleston and pushing their way up the 
rivers from the seacoast to the “Back Country,” 
in search of homes. 

These Ulstermen did not come to the New World 
as novices in the shaping of society; they had 
already made history. T[heir_ostensible object.in— 

+ ‘America\Was t to obtain land, but, like most external 
aims, it was secondary { to a deeper purpose. What 
had sent the Ulstermen to America was a passion 


for enol freedom. They were lusty men, shrewd 
and courageous, zealous to the d for_an ideal 


d withal so practical to the moment in business 
{hist itiseon'eameito be commen eae as 
eet a 
they could lay their hands onx’ though it is but 

air to them to add th is phrase is current whey- 
ever Scots dwell. They had contested im Parlia- 
ment and with arms for their own form of worship 
and for their civil rights. They were already fron- 
tiersmen, trained in the hardihood and craft of 


border warfare through years of guerrilla fighting 
with the Irish Celts. They had pitted and proved 


At vetihcdh dahil 


Shu Aeon 
THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 3 


their strength against a wilderness; they had re- 
claimed the North of Ireland from desolation. For 
the time, many of them were educated men; under 


the regulations of the Presbyterian—Church every 


e Presbyterian constituti isciphne. | They 
were brought up on the Bible and on the writings 
of their famous pastors, one of whom, as early as 
1650, had given utterance to the democratic doc- 
trine that “men are called to the magistracy by the 
suffrage of the people whom they govern, and for 
men to assume unto themselves power is mere tyr- 
anny and unjust abinieiion ds In subscribing to 
this doctrine and in resisting to the hilt all efforts 
of successive English kings to interfere in the elec- 
tion of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster had already 
declared for democracy. | 
t was shortly after Ja I_of Scotland be- 

came James l_of.England and while the English 

were founding Jamestown that the Scots had first 

occupied.Uister; but the true origin of the Ulster — 
_ Plantation lies further back, in the reign of Henry 
</ VIIT, in the days of the English Reformation. 


' 


In Henry’s Irish _realx Reformation; though 


4 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


proclaimed by royal authority, had never been ac- 
‘complished; and Henry’s-more famous daughter, 
‘Elizabeth; hed conceived the = =a 
r ied out by James, of planting colonies.of Brotes- 


d to promote loyalty in that rebellious 
land. Six counties, comprising half a million acres, 
formed the Ulster er Plantation.) The great majority 


of the colonists sent thither by James w 
Lowlanders, but among them were many English 


and a smaller number of Highlanders. ewe three 
peoples from the island of Britain brought forth, 
through-intermarriage, the Ulster Scots) 

(fhe reign of Charles J had inaugurated for the 
Ulstermen_an era. of persecution) Charles practi- 
cally suppressed the-Presbyterianmreligion in Ire- 
land. His son, Charles IL, struck at Ireland in 1666- 
through its cattle trade, by prohibiting the expor- 
tation of beef to England and Scotland. The Navi- 
gation Acts, excluding Ireland from direct trade ¢ 
with the colones, nie === 


ation Acts and_ Test Acts requiring con- 
hie ormity with the practices of the Church of Eng the practices of the C. of Eng- 


_ Madr ec ai 

It was largely by refugees from 

ne that America in the beginning was re 
nized.) But religious persecution was only one of the 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 5 


influences which shaped the course and formed the 
character of the Ulster Scots. In Ulster, whither 
they had originally been transplanted by James to 
found a loyal province in the midst of the King’s 
enemies, they had done their work too well and 
had waxed too powerful for the comfort of later 
their religion; but the subse t legislative ac 

which successively ruine olen trade, barred 
nonconformists from public office, stifled _Ivish 
commerce, pronounced non-Episcopal rriages 
irregular, and instituted heavy taxation and high 


rentals for the land their fathers had made produc- 
SE arate epee siete aes a 

These attacks, aimed through his religious con- 
science at the sources of his livelihood, made the 
Ulster Scot perforce what he was — a zealot as a 
citizen and a zealot _as a merchant_no less than 
as a Presbyterian. Thanks to his persecutors, he 
jadeauelipion of everything he undertook and re- 
garded his civil rights as divine rights. Thus out 
of persecution emerged a type of man who was 


high-principled_ and w; strong and violent, as 


tenacious of his own ri s he was blind often t 


the rights of others, acquisitive yet self-sacrifici 
<r Font Or ere ree 


& 


6 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


but most of all fearless, confident of his own power, 


oo aac canes 
determi o,have and to hold. 

Twenty thousand Ulstermen, it is estimated, left 
Ireland for America in the first three decades of 


the eighteenth’ century) More than six thousand of 
them are known to have entered Rennsylvania in 


1729 alone, and twenty years later they numbered 
~one-quarter of that colony’s population. During 
the five years preceding the Revolutionary War 
more than thirty thousand Ulstermen crossed the 
ocean and arrived in America just in time and 


in just the right frame of mind _to return King 
ia ae . ° e . 
George’s compliment in kind, by helping to deprive 


him of his American estates, a domain very ch 
larger than th . the acres of Ulster. They fully justified 
the fears of the good bishop who wrote Lord Dart- 
mouth, Secretary..for the.Colonies, that he trem- 
bled for the peace of the King’s overseas realm, 
since these thousands of “phanatical and hungry 
Republicans”’ had sailed for America. 

The Ulstermen who entered by..Charleston were 
known to the inhabitants of the tidewater regions 
as the “Scotch-Irish.”” Those who came from 


the north, tured southward by the offer of cheap 


lands, were called the “‘ Pen ia Irish.”? Both 


were, however, of the same race —a race twice 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 7 


expatriated, first from Scotland and then from Ire- 
land, and stripped of all that it had won through- 
out more than a century of persecution. To these 
exiles the Back Country of North Carolina, with 
its cheap and even free tracts lying far from the 
seat of government, must have seemed not only 
the Land of Promise but the Land of Last Chance. 
Here they must strike their roots into the sod with 
such interlocking strength that no cataclysm of 
tyranny should ever dislodge them — or they must 
accept the fate dealt out to them by their former 
persecutors and become a tribe of nomads and 
serfs. But to these Ulster immigrants such a 
choice was no choice at all. They knew themselves 
strong men, who had made the most of opportunity 
despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drum- 
ming of their feet along the banks of theShenandoah, 
or up the rivers from Charleston, and on through 
the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a con- 
quering people’s challenge to the Wilderness which 
lay sleeping like an unready sentinel at the gates 
of their Future. 


It is maintained still by many, ho r_often 
for American Independence, as in the Old Country 
they _were the first to demand the separation of 


an DNA er 
ry 


8 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 

ence is said to have been drawn up and signed in 
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20, 
1775." However that may be, itis certain that these 
Mecklenburg Protestants had received special 
schooling in the doctrine of independence. They 


had in their midst for eight years (1758-66) the 
>) SB aa ioe : 2 
Reveren lexander Craighead, a Presbyterian 


pressed ie 3 pemehiet bel 
Pennsylvania Synod acting on the Governor's pro- 
test, and so pers ed_in Virginia t h d 


ast fled to the North Carolina Back Country. 
here, during the remaining years of his life, as 


he sole = and teacher in the seitlements be- 


willing soil in which to sow the seeds of Liberty. 


There was ther branch of the Scottish r 
which helped to people the Back Country. The 
Highlanders, whose loyalty to their oath made 


them fight on the King’s side in the Revolutionary 
ar, have been somewhat looked in history. 
Tradition, handed down among the transplanted 


tSee Hoyt, The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence; and 
American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. 11, p. 855. 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 9 


clans — who, for the most part, spoke only Gaelic 
for a generation and wrote nothing — and latterly 
recorded by one or two of their descendants, sup- 
plies us with all we are ngwyable to Je rm of the 
early coming of the Gaels to Carolma. It would 
seem that their first immigration to America in 
small bands took place after the suppression of 
the Jacobite rising in 1Z15 — when Highlanders fled 
in numbers also to France — for by 1729 there was 
a settlement of them on the Cape Fear River. We 
know, too, that in 1748 it was charged against 
iel Johnston r_ of North Caroli 

om 1734 to 1752, that he had shown no joy over 
the King’s “glorious victory of Culloden” and that 
“he had appointed one William McGregor, who had 
been in the Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of 
the Peace during the last Rebellion [1745] and was 
not himself without suspicion of disaffection to His 
Majesty’s Government.”’ Itis indeed possible that 


Gabriel-Johnston, formerly a professor at - 
rew’s University, had _hi ways 


stranger to the kilt. He induced large numbers of 
Highlanders to come to America and probably in- 
fluenced the second George to moderate his treat- 
ment of the vanquished Gaels in the Old Country 
and permit their emigration to the New World. 


10 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


In contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular 
ideals were dictated by the forms of their Church, 
these Scots adhered still to the tribal or clan system, 
although they, too, in the majority, were Presby- 
terians, with a minority of Roman Catholies and 
Episcopalians. In the Scotch Highlands they had 
occupied small holdings on the land under the sway 
of their chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they 
were bound by blood and fealty but to whom they | 
paid no rentals. The position of the Head of the 
Clan was hereditary, but no heir was bold enough | 
to step forward into that position until he had per- 
formed some deed of worth. They were principally 
heidérs. thet chia! stock: being thelial 
black cattle of the Highlands. Their wars with ~ 
each other were cattle raids. Only in war, how- 
ever, did the Gael lay hands on his neighbor’s goods. 
There were no highwaymen and housebreakers 
in the Highlands. No Highland mansion, cot, or 
parn was ever locked. Theft and the breaking of 
an oath, sins against man’s honor, were held in 
such abhorrence that no one guilty of them could 
remain among his clansmen in the beloved glens. 
These Highlanders were a race of tall, robust men, 
who lived simply and frugally and t_on th 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 11 


other covering from rain and snow than their 
plaidies. It is reported of the Laird-of Keppoch, 
who was leading his clan to war in winter time, that 
his men were divided as to the propriety of follow- 
ing him further because he rolled a snowball to rest 
his head upon when he lay down. ‘“‘Now wedespair 
of victory,”’ they said, “since our leader has become 
so effeminate he cannot sleep without a pillow 

The “King’s glorious victory of Culloden.’ was 
followed by a policy of extermination carried on 
by the orders and under the personal direction of 
the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at 
last restrained his son from his orgy of blood, he 
offered the Gaels their lives and exile to America 
on condition of their taking the full oath of alle- 
giance. The majority accepted his terms, for not 


(2°r 


only were their lives forfeit but their crops and 
cattle had been destroyed and the holdings on 
which their ancestors had lived for many centuries 
taken from them. The descriptions of the scenes 
attending their leave-taking of the hills and glens 
they loved with such passionate fervor are among 
the most pathetic in history. Strong men who had 
met the ravage of a brutal sword without weakening 


1 MacLean, An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch High- 
landers in America. 


12 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


abandoned themselves to the agony of sorrow. 
They kissed the walls of their houses. They flung 
themselves on the ground and embraced the sod 
upon which they had walked in freedom. They 
called their broken farewells to the peaks and lochs 
of the land they were never again to see; and, as 
they turned their backs and filed down through the 
passes, their pipers played the dirge for the dead. 

Such was the character, such the deep feeling, 
of the race which entered N: orth Carolina from the 
coast and pushed up into the wilderness about the 
headwaters of Cape.Fear River. Tradition indi- 
cates that these hillsmen sought the interior be- 
cause the grass and pea vine which overgrew the 
innercountry stretching towards the mountains pro- 
vided excellent fodder for the cattle which some of 
the chiefs are said to have brought with them. 
These -Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible num- 
bers, were in the Yadkin Valley before 1730, pos- 
sibly even ten yearsearlier. In 1739 Neil MacNeill 
of Kintyre brought over a shipload of Gaels to 
rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff 
Hector from his residence near the blufis at Cross 
Creek, now Fayetteville. Some of these immigrants 
went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite with 
others of their clan who had been for some time in 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 13 


that district. The exact time of the first High- 
lander on the Yadkin cannot be ascertained, as 
there were no court records and the offices of the 
land companies were not then open for the sale 
of these remote regions. But by 1753 there were 
not less than four thousand Gaels in Cumberland 
County; where they occupied the chief magisterial 
posts; and they were already spreading over the 
lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Rich- 
mond, Robeson, Bladen, and Sampson counties. 
In these counties Gaelic was as commonly heard 
as English. 

In the years immediately preceding the Revolu- 
tion and even in 1776 itself they came in increasing 
numbers. They knew nothing of the smoldering 
fire just about to break into flames in the country 
of their choice, but the Royal Goyerner, Josiah 
Martin, knew that Highland arms would soon be 
needed by His Majesty. He knew something of 
Highland honor, too; for he would not let the 
Gaels proceed after their landing until they had 
bound themselves by oath to support the.Govern- 
ment of King George. So it was that the unfor- 
tunate Highlanders found themselves, according 
to their strict code of honor, forced to wield arms 
against the very Americans who had received and 


14 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
befriended them — and for the crowned brother 


of a prince whose name is execrated to this day in 
Highland song and story! 

They were led by Allan MacDenald of Kings- 
borough; and tradition gives us a stirring picture 
of Allan’s wife — the famous Flora MacDonald, 
who in Scotland had protected the Young Pre- 
tender in his flight—-making an impassioned ad- 
dress in Gaelic to the Highland soldiers and urging 
them on to die for honor’s sake. When this High- 
land force was conquered by the Americans, the 
large majority willingly bound themselves not to 
fight further against the American cause and were 
set at liberty. Many of them felt that, by offering 
their lives to the swords of the Americans, they 
had canceled their obligation to King George and 
were now free to draw their swords again and, 
this time, in accordance with their sympathies; so 
they went over to the American side and fought 
gallantly for independence. 


Although the brave glory of this pioneer age 
shines so brightly on the Lion-Rampant of Cale- 
donia, not to Scots alone does that whole glory 
belong. The second largest racial_stream which 


flowed into the Back-Country of Virginia and 


¢ 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS | 15 


North Carolina was German. Most of these Ger- 
mans went down from Pennsylvania and_ wer 
correct rendering of Pennsylvanische Deutsche. 
The upper Shenandoah Valley _was_settled_al- 
—— They were members of 
ee German Reformed, and) Monption 
churches. The cause which sent vast numbers of 


this sturdy ~ i Ces ee es 
gious persecution. By statute and by sword the 
Roman Catholic powers of Austria sought to wipe 
out the Salzburg Lutherans and the Moravian fol- 
lowers of John Huss. In that region of the Rhine 


country known in those days as the German Pal- 
atinate, now a part of Bavaria, Protestants were 
being massacred by the troops of Louis of France, 
then engaged in the War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion (1701-13) and in the zealous effort to extir- 
pate heretics from the soil of Europe. In 1708, by 
proclamation, Good Queen Anne offered protec; 
tion to the persecuted Palatines and invited 1 

to her dominions. Twelve thousand of them went 
to England, where they were warmly received by 
the English. But it was no slight task to settle 
twelve thousand immigrants of an alien speech in 


16 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


England and enable them to become independent 
problem lay in the Western World. The Germans 
needed homes and the Queen’s overseas dominions 
“necdedeolonibts. gy Wor settled at fist along 
the Hu nd eventually many of them took 
u in the fertile valley of the Mohawk. 
or fifty years or more German and Austrian - 
(ated. In Pennsyl- 
vania their influx averaged about fifteen hundred 
a year, and that colony became the distributing 
center for the German race in America. By 17 
iill is_li an estab- 
ied the frst white settlement in De Vallegalis 


ginia In 1732 Joist Heydt went south from York, 


Femavivetia, aid ett} ou se agg 
or near the site of the present city of Winchester. 

The life of Count.Zinzendorf, called “‘the Apos- 
tle,’’ one of the leaders of the Moravian immi- 
grants, glows like a star out of those dark and 
troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, 
he forsook whatever of ease his station promised 
him and fitted himself for evangelical work. In 
1741 he visited the Wyoming Valley to bring his 
religion to the Delawares and Shawanoes. He was 
not of those picturesque Captains of of the Lord who 


") ll ah ’ A 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 17 


bore their muskets on their shoulders when they 
went forth to preach. Armored only with the 
shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the 
sword of the spirit, his feet ““shod with the prepara- 
tion of the gospel of peace,’ he went out into the 
country of these bloodthirsty tribes and told them 
that he had come to them in their darkness to 
teach the love of the Christ which lighteth the 
world. The Indians received him _suspieiously. 
One day Sacre ai eciTanialine once eee 
Delawares drew near to slay him and were about 
to strike when they saw two deadly snakes crawl 
in from the opposite side of the tent, move directly 
towards the Apostle, and pass harmlessly over his 


a body. Thereaft arded him _as under 
spiritual protection. Indeed so widespread was 


his good fame among the tribes that for some years 


all Moravian settle ng the borders were 


unmolested. Painted savages passed through on 


their way to war with enemy bands or to raid the 
border, but for the sake of one consecrated spirit, 
whom they had seen death avoid, they spared 
the lives and goods of his fellow saps When_ 
Zinzendorf departed a year 


on David Zeisberger, w who lived the love he 


/ for over over fifty years and converted many savage years and conver 


y 


18 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Zeisberger was taken before the Governor and 
army heads at Philadelphia, who had only too good 
reason to be suspicious of priestly counsels in the 
tents of Shem: but he was able to impress white 
men no less than simple savages with the nobility 
of the doctrine he had learned from the Apostle. 

In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood. ‘purchased 
one Findzed thousand acres in North Carolina 
trom Lord. Granville! Bishop Spangenburg was 
commissioned to survey this large acreage, which 
was situated in the present county of Forsyth east 
of the Yadkin, and_which~is_historically listed as 
the Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve Brethren 
left the Moravian settlements of Bethlehem and 
Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, and journeyed south- 


ward to begin the founding of a colony on their new 
land. Brother Adam Grube,..one of the twelve, 
kept a diary of the events of this expedition.* 
Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid it, 
in some measure, to the primitive Gaels of the High- 
lands for their warrior strength and their fealty, 
and to the enlightened Scots of Ulster for their en- 
terprise and for their sacrifice unto blood that 
free conscience and just laws might promote the 


« This diary is printed in full in Travels in the American Colonies. 
edited by N. D. Mereness. 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 19 


progress and safeguard the intercourse of their 
kind. Now let us take up for a moment Brother 
Grube’s Journal even as we welcome, perhaps the 
more gratefully, the mild light of evening after the 
flooding sun, or as our hearts, when too strongly 
stirred by the deeds of men, turn for rest to the 
serene faith and the naive speech of little children. 

The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership 
of one of their number, Brother | Gottlob... Their 
earliest alarms on the march were not caused, as 
we might expect, by anticipations of the painted 
Cherokee, but by encounters with the strenuous 
“Trish.” One of these came and laid himself to 
sleep beside the Brethren’s camp fire on their first 
night out, after they had sung their evening hymn 
and eleven had stretched themselves on the earth 
for slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their leader, 
hanging his hammock between two trees, ascend- 
ed — not only in spirit —a little higher than his 
charges, and “rested well in it.””. Though the alarm- 
ing Irishman did not disturb them, the Brethren’s 
doubts of that race continued, for Brother Grube 
wrote on the 14th of October: ‘‘ About four in the 
morning we set up our tent, going four miles 
beyond Car! Isles [Carlisle, seventeen miles south- 
west of Harrisburg] so as not to be too near the 


20 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Irish Presbyterians. After breakfast the Brethren 
shaved and then we rested under our tent. j 
People who were staying at the Tavern came to see 
what kind of folk we were. . . . Br Gottlob held 
vening service and then we lay down around 
our cheerful fire, and Br Gottlob in his hammock.” 
the settlers and wayfarers of that time. On one 
day the Brethren bought “‘some hay from a Swiss,” 
later ‘“‘some kraut from a German which tasted 
very good to us”’; and presently “an Englishman 
came by and drank a cup of tea with us and was 
very grateful for it.”” Frequently the little band 
paused while some of the Brethren went off to the 
farms along the route to help “‘cut hay.” These 
kindly acts were usually repaid with éilts of food 
} or produce. 
One day while on the march they halted at a 
avern and farm in Shenandeah Valley kept by a 


man whose name Brother Grube wrote down as 
| *‘Severe.”’ Since we know that Brother Grube’s 
| spelling of names other than German requires 
/ editing, we venture to hazard a guess that the 
name he attempted to set down as it sounded to 
him was Sevier. And we wonder if, in his brief 
sojourn, he saw a lad of eight years, slim, tall, and 

foie D st 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 21 
blond, with daring-and mischievous blue eyes. and 
cain curve ofthe pn that these hae 
tin the hearts of beth-sexes when he -should_be-a_ 

_man_and reach out_with swift-hands_and_reckless 
will for his ires. If he saw this lad, he beheld 
John Sevier, later to become. one.of.the.most-pie-... 
turesque and beloved | heroes « of the Old Southwest. 

Hardships abounded on the Brethren’s journey, 
but faith and the Christian’s joy, which no man 
taketh from him, met and surmounted them. 
“Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked. 
. We took the right hand road but found no 
water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to 
drive five miles into the night to find a stopping- 
place.”’ Two of the Brethren went ahead “‘to seek 
out the road”’ through the darkened wilderness. 
There were rough hills in the way; and, the horses 
being exhausted, “Brethren had to help push.” 
But, in due season, ‘““Br Nathanael held evening 
prayer and then we slept in the care of Jesus,” 
with Brother Gottlob as usual in his hammock. 
Three days later the record runs: “‘Toward even- 
ing we saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down 
so very steep a hill that we fastened a small tree 
to the back of our wagon, locked the wheels, and 
the Brethren held back by the tree with all their 


‘ 


22 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


might.”” Even then the wagon went down so fast 
that most of the Brethren lost their footing and 
rolled and tumbled pell-mell. But Faith makes 
little of such mishaps: ““No harm was done and we 
thanked the Lord that he had so graciously pro- 
tected us, for it looked dangerous and we thought 
at times that it could not possibly be done with- 
out accident but we got down safely ... we 
were all very tired and sleepy and let the angels 
be cur guard during the night.” Rains fell in 
torrents, making streams almost impassable and 
drenching the little band to the skin. The ham- 
mock was empty one night, for they had to spend 
the dark hours trench-digging about their tent to 
keep it from being washed away. Two days later 
(the 10th of November) the weather cleared and 
““we spent most of the day drying our blankets and 
mending and darning our stockings.” They also 
bought supplies from settlers who, as Brother 
Grube observed without irony, 

are glad we have to remain here so long and that it 
means money for them. In the afternoon we held a 
little Lovefeast and rested our souls in the loving sacri- 
fice of Jesus, wishing for beloved Brethren in Bethlehem 
and that they and we might live ever close to Him. . . . 


Nov. 16. We rose early to ford the river. The bank 
was so steep that we hung a tree behind the wagon, 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 23 


fastening it in such a way that we could quickly release 

l¢ when the wagon reached the water. The current was 
very swift and the lead horses were carried down a bit 
with it. The water just missed running into the wagon 
but we came safely to the other bank, which however 
we could not climb but had to take half the things out 
of the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could 
pull, help our horses which were quite stiff, and so we 
brought our ark again to dry land. 


On -the evening of the 17th of November the 
twelve. arrived safely on their land on the “Etkin” 
Yadkin), having been six weeks on the march. 
They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had 
provided for them. This time the gift was a de- 
serted cabin, “large enough that we could all lie 
down around the walls. We at once made prep- 
aration for a little Lovefeast and rejoiced heartily 
with one another.” 

In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, 
seemed as one of those mansions “‘not built with 


hands” and descended miraculously from the hea- 
/ -vens, the held their Lovefeast 1 olves 
: entacostal hour the tongue of fire descended-upon 
__ Brother Gottlob, so that he made a new song unto 


the Lord. Who shall venture to say it is not better 
worth preserving than many aclassic? © 


24 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


We hold arrival Lovefeast here 
In Carolina land, 
A company of Brethren true, 
A little Pilgrim-Band, 
Called by the Lord to be of those 
Who through the whole world go, 
To bear Him witness everywhere 
And nought but Jesus know. 


Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest 
and “‘ Br Gottlob hung his hammock above our heads” 
—as was most fitting on this of all nights; for is 
not the Poet’s place always just a little nearer to 
_the stars? 


he pioneers did in groups. 
There were families who-set-offalone. One of these 


now claims our attention, for there was a lad in this 
family whose name and deeds were to sound like 
a ballad of romance from out the dusty pages of 
history. This this family’ s name was Boone. 

Neither ‘Scots nor Germans can elatiti Daniel 
* Boone; he_wasin blood a blend of English and . 
Welsh; in character wholly English. His grand- 
father George Boone was born in 1666 in the ham- 
let of Stoak, near Exeter in Devonshire —Gearge 


Boone was a weaver by trade and-a-Quaker by 
religion. In England in his time the Quakers were 
22 Sap 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 25 


oppressed, and George Boone therefore sought. in- 
formation of William Penn, his coreligionist, re- 
garding the colony which Penn bad established in 
America. In 1712 he sent his three elder children, 


George, Sarah, and Squire, to spy out the land. 


Sarah and Squire remained in P ia, while 
their brother return ith glowing re- 


ports. On August 17,1717, George Boone, his wife, 
and the rest of his children journeyed to Bristeland 


sailed for-Philadelphia;-arriving there on the 10th 
_ of October. Tne Boones wont frstto,Abiusion, ny 


: > 


: . Laterthey moved 


_tothenorthwestern frontier Iauislend Noni Miaka 


a Welsh community which, a few years previously, 
had turned.Quaker.| Sarah Boone married a Ger- 


man named Jacob Stover, who had settled in Oley 
Township, Berks County. In 1718 George Boone 


took up four hundred acres in Oley, or, t : 
lived in his lo i i when he died 

| the age of seventy-eight. He left eight children, 
| fifty-two grandchildren, ae 


dren, seventy descendants in al descendants in all — English, Ger- 
man, idl Genkchtrish and Scotch-Irish blended into o 


family of Americans.* 
a end 


tR. G. Thwaites, Daniel Boone, p. 5. 


26 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
A aes the Wel a family of 


. In 1720 Squire Boone married Sarah 
tear (gn years Jatee iho bbtadaeaineeta 
Qley-on Owatisi Creek, eight miles southeast of the 


Boone was.born, the fourth so d sixth child o 


uire and Sarah Morgan Boone, Daniel Boone 
therefore was a son of the frontier. In his child- 


hood he became familiar with hunters and with 
Indians, for even the red men came often in 
friendly fashion to his grandfather’s house. Squire 
Boone enlarged his farm by thrift. He continued 
at his trade of weaving and kept five or six looms 
going, making homespun cloth for the market and 
his neighbors. 

Daniel’s father owned grazing grounds several 
miles north of the homestead and each season he 
sent his stock to the range. Sarah Boone and her 
little Daniel drove the cows. From early spring 
till late autumn, mother and son lived in a rustic 
cabin alone on the frontier. A rude dairy house 
stood over a cool spring, and here Sarah Boone 
made her butter and cheese. Daniel, aged ten at 
this time, watched the herds; at sunset he drove 
them to the cabin for milking, and locked them in 


the cowpens at night. 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS Q7 

He was not allowed firearms at that age,so_he 
shaped for himself a weapon that ser imn-well, 
ae roots clei So 
ee miseathe in (thé launching of this primitive 


spear that he easily brought down birds and small 
gamet When he reached his twelfth year, his father 
bought him a rifle; and he soon became a crack 
shot. A year later we find him setting off on the 
autumn hunt — after driving the cattle in for the 
winter — with all the keenness and courage of a 
man twice his thirteen years. His rifle enabled 
him to return with meat for the family and skins 
to be traded in Philadelphia. When he was four-_ 
teen his brother Sam married Sarah Day, an in- 
telligent_young Quakeress who tock a_ special 


interest in her young brother-in-law and taught 
Ine tthoTadifients of three Ris.” 

The Boones were prosperous and happy in Oley. 
and it may be wondered why they left their farms 
set their facestowards the Unknown. It is recorded 


that, thou Boones were Quakers, the re 
a high mettle and were not infr t 


with by the Meeting. ‘Two of Squire Boone’s chil- 


dren married “ worldlings ’”’ — non-Quakers —and 
eee Ne 


28 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 

ere in ‘di * by the Society. 
In defiance of his sect, which strove to make him 
sever all connection with his unruly offspring, 


Squire Boone refused to shut his doors on the 
son and the daughter who h i 1 


Quakerdom. The Society-of Friends-thereupon ex- 
elled him. This occurred apparently during the 


winter of 1748-49. In t i 50 we see 
a CE 

the whole Boone family (save two sons) with their 

wives and _ chil eir household goods and 


their stock, on the great highway, bound for a land 


where the hot heart and the belligerent spirit shall 
not be held amiss. 
» Southward through the Shenandoah goes the 


Boone caravan. The women and children usually 
sit in the wagons. The men march ahead or along- 
side, keeping a keen eye open for Indian or other 


enemy in the wild, their_rifles under arm or over 
the shoulder. who has done with 
Quakerdom and is leading’ all that he holds dear 


out to larger horizons, } 


ahead of the line, as we 
picture him, ready to’ meet first whatever danger 
le is a strong wiry man of 
rather small stature, with dy complexio: 

hair, and gray eyes. Somewhere in the line, to- 
gether, we think, are the mother and son who have 


may assail his tribe! 


THE TREAD OF PIONEERS 29 
herded cattle and companioned each other through 


| long months in the cabin on the frontier. We do 


not think of this woman as riding in the wagon, 
“yahe may have done so, but prefer to picture 


her>?Wi er robust body, her black hair, and 


_ her black eyes — with the sudden Welsh snap in 


the i turdily as any of her sons. 


If Daniel be beside her, what does she see when 
she looks at him? A lad well set up but not over- 
tall for his sixteen years, perhaps — for “‘eye-wit- 
nesses’”’ differ in their estimates of Daniel Boone’s 
height — or possibly taller than he looks, because 
his figure has the forest hunter’s natural slant for- 
ward and the droop of the neck of one who must 


ee. sometimes in order to tread silently. 
Hil BO ond whic shows nie 

face — which would be fair but for its tan — and in 
the English -cut_of feature, the straw-colored eye- 
brows, and the blue eyes. But his Welsh mother’s 
legacy is seen in the black hair that hangs long and 
loose in the hunter’s fashion to his shoulders. We 
can think of Daniel Boone only as exhilarated by 
this plunge into the Wild. He sees ahead — the 
days of his great explorations and warfare, the dis- 
covery of Kentucky? Not atall. This is a boy of 
sixteen in love with his rifle. He looks ahead to 


ee od 
tS <e 


30 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


vistas of forest filled with deer and to skies clouded 
with flocks of wild turkeys. In that dream there 
is happiness enough for Daniel Boone. Indeed, for 
himself, even in later life, he asked little, if any, 
more. He trudges on blithely, whistling. 


CHAPTER II os 


FOLKWAYS fg 


os migrations into the inland valleys of 


_ frontier. Thus the beginnings of the 


westward movement disclose to us a feature char- 
acteristic also of the later migrations which flung 
the frontier over the Appalachians, across the Mis- 
sissippi, and finally to the shores of ; of the Pacific. 
The pi pioneers, instead of moving westward by s slow 
degrees, subduing the wilderness as they went, 
overleaped great spaces and planted themselves be- 
yond, out of contact with the life they had left 
behind. Thus separated by hundreds of miles of 
intervening wilderness from the more civilized 
communities, the conquerors of the first American 
“West,” prototypes of the conquerors of suc- 
ceeding “ Wests,” inevitably struck out their own 
ways of life and developed their own customs. It 


would be difficult, indeed, to find anywhere a more 
31 


32 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


remarkablecontrastin contemporary folkways than 
that presented by the two great community groups 
of the South — the inland or piedmont settlements, 
called the Back Country, and the lowland-tewns 
and_plantations along the seaboard. 

The older society of the seaboard towns, as 
events were soon to prove, was not less indepen- 
dent in its ideals than the frontier society of the 
Back Country; but it was aristocratic in tone and 
feeling. Its leaders were the landed gentry — men 
of elegance, and not far behind their European 
contemporaries in the culture of the day. They 
were rich, without effort, both from their planta- 
tions, where black slaves.and indentured servants 
labored, and from their coastwise and overseas 
trade. Their battles with forest and red man were 
long past. They had leisure for diversions such as 
the chase, the breeding and racing of thoroughbred 
horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, cock- 
fighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the 
rapier. Law and politics drew their soberer minds. 
4. Very different were the conditions which con- 
fronted the pioneers in the first American “‘ West.” 
There every jewel of promise was ringed round 
with hostility. The cheap land the pioneer had 
purchased at a nominal price, or the free land 


FOLKWAYS | 33 


he had taken by “tomahawk claim” — that is by 
cutting his name into the bark of a deadened tree, 
usually beside a spring — supported a forest of tall 
trunks and interlacing leafage. The long grass and 
weeds which covered the ground in a wealth of 
natural pasturage harbored the poisonous cop- 
perhead and the rattlesnake and, being shaded 
by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews 
and bred swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big 
flies which tortured both men and cattle. To pro- 
tect the cattle and horses from the attacks of 
these pests the settlers were obliged to build large 
“smudges ’”’ — fires of green timber — against the 
wind. The animals soon learned to back up into 


EEE eee 
_ the dense smoke and to move from one grazing — 
spot to another-as_the wind changed. But useful 


as were the green timber fires that rolled their 
smoke on the wind to save the stock, they were at 
the same time a menace to the pioneer, for they 
proclaimed to roving bands _of Cherokees, that a 
further encroachment on their territory had been 
made by their most hated enemies—the men 
who felled the hunter’s forest. Many an outpost 
pioneer who had made the long hard journey by 
sea and land from the old world of persecution to 
this new country of freedom, dropped from the 


3 


34 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


red man’s shot ere he had hewn the threshold 
of his home, leaving his wife and children to the 
unrecorded mercy of his slayer. 

Those more fortunate pioneers who: settled in 
groups won the first heat in the battle with the 
wilderness through massed effort under wariness. 
They made their clearings in the forest, built their 
cabins and stockades, and planted their cornfields, 
while lookouts kept watch and rifles were stacked 
within easy reach. Every special task, such as a 
“‘raising,”’ as cabin building was called, was under- 
taken by the community chiefly because the Indian . 
danger necessitated swift building and made group 
action imperative. But the stanch heart is ever 
the glad heart. Nothing in this frontier history 
impresses us more than the joy of the pioneer at his 
labors. His determined optimism turned danger’s 
dictation into an occasion for jollity. On the 
appointed day for the “raising,” the neighbors 
would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer’s 
holding — the men with their rifles and axes, the 
women with their pots and kettles. Every child 
toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden 
dishes and spoons. These free givers of labor had 
something of the Oriental’s notion of the sacred 
ratification of friendship by a feast. 


FOLKWAYS 35 


The dimensio a cabin were si 
twenty feet. The timber for the building, having 
been already cut, lay at hand — logs of hickory, 
oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make 
the foundations, the men seized four of the thickest 
logs, laid them in place, and notched and grooved 
and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they 
had grown so. The wood must grip by its own 
substance alone to hold up the pioneer’s dwelling, 
for there was not an iron nail to be had in the whole 
of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the founda- 
tion logs and notched into each other at the four 
corners formed the walls; and, when these stood 
at seven feet, the builders laid parallel timbers 
and puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. 
The ridgepole of the roof was supported by two 
crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs 
and wooden slabs. The crevices of the walls were 
packed close with red clay and moss. Lastly, 
spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The 
door was made thick and heavy to withstand the 
Indian’srush. And the windowpanes? They were 
of paper ted wit : or bear’s gr / 

When the sun stood overhead, the women would 
give the welcome call of “Dinner!” Their morn- 
ing had not been less busy than the men’s. They 


36 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


had baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear 
or pork, or broiled venison steaks; and — above 
all and first of all — they had concocted the great 
“stew pie” without which a raising could hardly 
take place. This was a disputatious mixture of 

deer, hog, and bear — animals which, in life, would 
surely have companioned each other as ill! It was 
made in sufficient quantity to last over for supper 
when the day’s labor was done. At supper the men 
took their ease on the ground, but with their rifles 
always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their 
efforts stood in the Yadkin, within sight of the 
great mountains the pioneers were one day to 
cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from 
the lookout, hidden in the brush, would bring the 
builders with a leap to their feet. It might be only 
a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, 
or a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his 
hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see 
him look once at the new house on his hunting 
pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the 
group of families, lift his hand in sign of peace, and 
silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into 
the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the un- 
known wilderness beyond the mountains, pours 
its last glow on the roof of the cabin and on the 


FOLKWAYS 37 


group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, 
it puts the red touch of the West im the faces of the 
men — who have just declared, through the build- 
ing of a cabin, that here is Journey’s End and their 
abiding place. 


a ee 
pioneers as well bor da i i e 


fruits ; re were flower-picking excur- 
sions in the warm spring days. Early in April 
the service berry bush gleamed ° starrily along the 
watercourses, its hardy white blooms defying win- 
ter’s lingering look. This bush—or tree, indeed, 
since it is not afraid to rear its slender trunk 
as high as cherry or crab apple — might well be 
considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in 
those regions where the white silence covers the 
earth for several months and shuts the lonely 
homesteader in upon himself. From the pioneer 
time of the Old-Southwest to the last frontier of 
the Far North today, the service. Spr oS 
alike by white men and Indians; and the red men 
have woven about it some of their prettiest legends. 
When June had ripened the tree’s blue-black ber- 
ries, the Back Country folk went out in parties 


to gather them. Though the service berry was a 
2 cr RK 


= aa 


38 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


food staple_on the frontier and its gathering a 
matter of household olk made their 
berry-pieking jaunt a gala occasion, The women 
and children with pots and baskets — the young 
girls vying with each other, under the eyes of the 
youths, as to who could strip boughs the fastest — 
plucked gayly while the men, rifles in hand, kept 
guard. For these happy summer days_were also 
the red -iaiscalpig Tae eee 
the chatter of the picnickers might be interrupted 
by the chilling war whoop. When that sound was 
heard, the berry pickers raced for the fort. _The 
wild fruits — strawberries, service berries, cherries, 
plums, crab apples — were, however, too necessary 
a part of the pioneer’s meager diet to be left un- 
plucked out of fear of an Indian attack. Another 
day would see the same group out again. The 
children would keep closer to their mothers, no 
doubt; and the laughter of the young girls would be ' 
more subdued, even if their coquetry lacked noth- 
ing of its former effectiveness. Early marriages 
were the rule in the Back Country and betrothals 
were frequently plighted at these berry pickings. 
As we consider the descriptions of the frontiers- 
man left for us by travelers of his own day, we are 
not more interested in his battles with wilderness 


FOLKWAYS 39 


and Indian than in the visible effects of both wil- 
derness and Indian upon him. His countenance 
and bearing still show the European, but the Euro- 
pean greatly altered by savage contact. The red 
peril, indeed, influenced every side of frontier life. 
The bands of women and children at the harvest- 
ings, the log rollings, and the house raisings, were 
not there merely to lighten the men’s work by their 
laughter and love-making. It was not safe for 
them to remain in the cabins, for, to the Indian, 
the cabin thus boldly thrust upon his immemorial 
hunting grounds was only a secondary evil; the 
greater evil was the white man’s family, bespeak- 
ing the increase of the dreaded palefaces. The 
Indian peril trained the pioneers to alertness, 
shaped them as warriors and hunters, suggested 
the fashion of their dress, knit their families into 
clans and the clans into a tribe wherein all were 
of one spirit in the protection of each and all and a 
unit of hate against their common enemy. 

Too often the fields which the pioneer planted 
with corn were harvested by the Indian with fire. 
The hardest privations suffered by farmersand stock 
were due to the settlers having to flee to the forts, 
leaving to Indian devastation the crops on which 
their sustenance mainly depended. Sometimes. 


40 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


fortunately, the warning came in time for the fron- 
tiersman to collect his goods and chattels in his 
wagon and to round up his live stock and drive 
them safely into the common fortified enclosure. At 
others, the tap of the “‘express’’ — as the herald of 
Indian danger was called — at night on the win- 
dowpane and the low word whispered hastily, ere 
the ‘“‘express”’ ran on to the next abode, meant 
that the Indians had surprised the outlying cabins 
of the settlement. 

The forts were built as centrally as possible in 
thescattered settlements. They consisted of cabins, 
blockhouses, and stockades. A range of cabins 
often formed one side of a fort. The walls on the 
outside were ten or twelve feet high with roofs 
sloping inward. The blockhouses built at the an- 
gles of the fort projected two feet or so beyond 
the outer walls of the cabins and stockades, and 
were fitted with portholes for the watchers and 
the marksmen. The entrance to the fort was a 
large folding gate of thick slabs. It was always on 
the side nearest the spring. The whole structure 
of the fort was bullet-proof and was erected with- 
out an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these 
forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having 
proved that they could not storm them, generally 


FOLKWAYS 41 


laid siege and waited for thirst to compel a sortie. 
But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by 
the equally cunning defender. Some daring soul, 
with silent feet and perhaps with naked body 
painted in Indian fashion, would drop from the 
wall under cover of the night, pass among the 
foemen to the spring, and return to the fort 
with water. 

Into the pioneer’s phrase-making the Indian 
influence penetrated so that he named seasons 
for his foe. So thoroughly has the term “Indian 
Summer,” now to us redolent of charm, become 
disassociated from its origins that it gives us a 
shock to be reminded that to these Back Country 
folk the balmy days following on the cold snap 
meant the season when the red men would come 
back for a last murderous raid on the settlements 
before winter should seal up the land. The 
““Powwowing Days” were the mellow days in the 
latter part of February, when the red men in 
council made their medicine and learned of their 
redder gods whether or no they should take the 
warpath when the sap pulsed the trees into leaf. 
Even the children at their play acknowledged the 
red-skinned schoolmaster, for their chief games 
were a training in his woodcraft and in the use of 


42 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


his weapons. Tomahawk-throwing was a favorite 
,Sport_because of its gruesome practical purposes. 


The boys must learn to gauge the tomahawk’s 
revolutions by the distance of the throw so as to 
bury the blade in its objective. (Swiftrunning and 
high jumping through the brush and fallen timber 
were sports that taught agility in — The 
boys learned to shoot accurately the long tifles of 
their time, with a log or a forked stick for a rest, 
and a moss pad under the barrel to keep it from 
jerking and spoiling the aim. They wrestled with 
each other, mastered the tricks of throwing an 
opponent, and learned the scalp hold instead of the 
toe hold. It | was part of their education tomi- 
tate the noises of every bird and beast of the forest. 
So they learned to lure the turkey within range, or 
by the bleat of a fawn to bring her dam to the rifle. 
A well-simulated wolf’s howl would call forth a 
response and so inform the lone hunter of the 
vicinity of the pack. This forest speech was not 
only the language of diplomacy in the hunting 
season; it was the borderer’s secret code in war. 
Stray Indians put themselves in touch again with 
- the band by turkey calls in the daytime and by 
owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen used 
the same means to trick the Indian band into 


FOLKWAYS 43 


betraying the place of its ambuscade, or to lure the 
strays, unwitting, within reach of the knife. 

In that age, before the forests had given place to 
farms and cities and when the sun had but slight 
acquaintance with the sod, the summers were cool 
and the winters long and cold in the Back Country. 
Sometimes in September severe frosts destroyed 
the corn. The first light powdering called “‘hunt- 
ing snows” fell in October, and then the men of the 
Back Country set out on the chase. Their object 
was meat — buffalo, deer, elk, bear — for the win- 
ter larder, and skins to send out in the spring by 
pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, 
and salt. The rainfall in North Carolina was much 
heavier than in Virginia and, from autumn into 
early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with 
rain; but wet weather, so far from deterring the 
hunter, aided him to the kill. In blowing rain, he 
knew he would find the deer herding in the shel- 
tered places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he 
knew that his quarry ranged the open woods and 
the high places. The fair play of the pioneer held 
it a great disgrace to kill a deer in winter when the 
heavy frost had crusted the deep snow. On the 
crust men and wolves could travel with ease, but 
the deer’s sharp hoofs pierced through and made 


44 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


him defenseless. Wolves and dogs destroyed great 
quantities of deer caught in this way; and men 
who shot deer under these conditions weré con- 
sidered no huntsmen. There was, indeed, a practi- 
cal side to this chivalry of the chase, for meat and 
pelt were both poor at this season; but the true 
hunter also obeyed the finer tenet of his code, for 
he would go to the rescue of deer caught in the 
crusts — and he killed many a wolf sliding over the 
ice to an easy meal. 

The community moral code of the frontier was 
brief and rigorous. What it lacked of the “where- 
as” and “inasmuch” of legal ink it made up in 
sound hickory. In fact, when we review the activi- 
ties of this solid yet elastic wood in the moral, 
social, and economic phases of Back Country life, 
we are moved to wonder if the pioneers would have 
been the same race of men had they been nurtured 
beneath a less strenuous and adaptable vegetation! 
The hickory gave the frontiersman wood for all 
implements and furnishings where the demand 
was equally for lightness, strength, and elastic- 
ity. It provided his straight logs for building, his 
block mortars — hollowed by fire and stone — for 
corn-grinding, his solid plain furniture, his axles, 
rifle butts, ax handles, and so forth. It supplied 
ae 


y 
ex 


FOLKWAYS 45 


his magic wand for the searching out of iniquity 
in the junior members of his household, and his 
most cogent argument, as a citizen, in convincing 
the slothful, the blasphemous, or the dishonest 
adult whose errors disturbed communal harmony. 
Its nuts | fed_his hogs. Before he raised stock, the 
unripe hickory nuts, crushed for their white liquid, 
supplied him with butter for his corn bread and 
helped out his store of bear’s fat. Both the name 
and the knowledge of the uses of this tree came 
to the earliest pioneers through contact with the 
red man, whose hunting bow and fishing spear and 
the hobbles for his horses were fashioned of the 
“pohickory”’ tree. The Indian women first made 
pohickory butter, and the wise old men of the 
Cherokee towns, so we are told, first applied the 
pohickory rod to the vanity of youth! 

A glance at the interior of a log cabin in the 
Back Country of Virginia or North Carolina would 
show, i in primitive design, what is, perhaps, after 
all the perfect home — a place where the personal 
life and the work life are united and where nothing 
futile finds space. Every object in the cabin was 
practical and had been made by hand on the spot 
to answer a need. Besides the chairs hewn from 
hickory blocks, there were others made of slabs 


+ 


46 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


set on three legs. A large slab or two with four legs 
served as a movable table;-the permanent table 
was built against the wall, its outer edge held up 
by two sticks. The low bed was built into, the wall 
in the same way and softened for slumber by a 
mattress of pine needles, chaff, ordried moss. In the 
best light from the greased paper windowpanes 


stood the spinning wheel and loom, on which the ve 


housewife made cloth for the family’s garments. 
Over the fireplace or beside the doorway, and sus- 
pended usually on stags’ antlers, hung the fire- 
arms and the yellow powderhorns, the latter often 
carved in Indian fashion with scenes of the hunt 
or war. On a shelf or on pegs were the wooden 
spoons, plates, bowls, and noggins. Also near the 
fireplace, which was made of large flat stones with 
a mud-plastered log chimney, stood the grinding 
block for making hominy. If it were an evening 
in early spring, the men of the household would be 
tanning and dressing deerskins to be sent out with 
the trade caravan, while the women sewed, made 
moccasins or mended them, in the light of pine 
knots or candles of bear’s grease. The larger chil- 
dren might be weaving cradles for the babies, In- 
dian fashion, out of hickory twigs; and there would 
surely be a sound of whetting steel, for scalping 


FOLKWAYS AT 


knives and tomahawks must be kept keen-tem- 
pered now that the days have come when the red 
gods whisper their chant of war through the young 
leafage. 

~The Back Country folk, as they came from sev- 
eral countries, generally settled in national groups, 
each preserving its own speech and its own re- 
ligion, each approaching frontier life through its 
own native temperament. And the frontier met 
each and all alike, with the same need and the 
same menace, and molded them after one general 
pattern. If the cabin stood im a typical Virginian 
settlement where the folk were of English stock, 
it may be that the dulcimer and some old love song 
of the homeland enlivened the work — or perhaps 
chairs were pushed back and young people danced 
the country dances of the homeland and the Vir- 
ginia Reel, for these Virginian English were merry 
folk, and their religion did not frown upon the 
dance. Ina cabin on the Shenandoah or the upper 
Yadkin the German tongue clicked away over the 
evening dish of kraut or sounded more sedately in 
a Lutheran hymn; while from some herder’s hut 
on the lower Yadkin the wild note of the bagpipes 
or of the ancient four-stringed harp mingled with 
the Gaelic speech. 


48 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Among the homes in the Shenandoah where old 
England’s ways prevailed, none was gayer than 
the tavern kept by the man whom the good Mora- 
vian Brother called “Severe.” There perhaps the 
feasting celebrated the nuptials of John Sevier, 
who was barely past his seventeenth birthday when 
in moccasined feet on the puncheon flooring, was a 
ceremonial to usher into Back Country life the new 
municipality John had just organized, for John at 
nineteen had taken his. earliest step towards his 
larger career, which we shall follow.later on, as 
the architect of the first little governments beyond 
the mountains. 

In the Boone home on the Yadkin, we may guess 
that the talk was solely of the hunt, unless young 
Daniel had already become possessed of his first 
compass and was studying its ways. On such an 
evening, while the red afterglow lingered, he might 
be mending a passing trader’s firearms by the fires 
of the primitive forge his father had set up near 
the trading path running from Hillsborough to the 
Catawba towns. /It was said by the local nim- 
rods that none could doctor a sick rifle better than 
young Daniel Boone, already the master huntsman 
of them all And perhaps some trader’s tale, told 


FOLKWAYS. 49 


when the caravan halted for the night, kindled 
the youth’s first desire to penetrate the mountain- 
guarded wilderness, for the tales of these Roma- 
nies of commerce were as the very badge of 
their free-masonry, and entry money at the doors 
of strangers. 

Out on the border’s edge, heedless of the shadow 
of the mountains looming between the newly built 
cabin and that western land where they and their 
kind were to write the fame of the Ulster Scot in a 
shining script that time cannot dull, there might 
sit a group of stern-faced men, all deep in discussion 
of some point of spiritual doctrine or of the tem- 
poral rights of men. Yet, in every cabin, what- 
ever the national differences, the setting was the 
same Thespirit of the frontier was modeling out 
of old clay a new Adam to answer the needs of a 
new earth. 

It would be far less than just to leave the Back 
Country folk without further reference to the de- 
voted labors of their clergy. In the earliest days 
the settlers were cut off from their church systems; 
the pious had to maintain their piety unaided, ex- 
cept in the rare cases where a pastor accompanied 
a group of settlers of his denomination into the 


wilds. One of the first ministers who fared into 
é i 


eS eT ape eee 


50 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the Back Country to remind the Ulster Presby- 
terians of their spiritual duties.was_the. Reverend 
Hugh McAden of Philadelphia. He made long 
itineraries under the greatest hardships, in con- 
stant danger from Indians and wild beasts, carry- 
ing the counsel of godliness to the far seattered 
flock. Among the Highland settlements the Rev- 
erend..James..Campbell for thirty years traveled 
about, preaching each Sunday at some gathering 
point a sermon in both English and Gaelic. A 
little later, in the Yadkin Valley, after Craighead’s 
day there arose a small schoo) of Presbyterian 
ministers whose zeal and fearlessness in the 
cause of religion and of just government had an 
influence on the frontiersmen that can hardly be 
overestimated. 

But, in the beginning, the pioneer encountered 
the savagery of border life, grappled with it, and 
reacted to it without guidance from other men- 
tor than his own instincts. His need was still the 
primal threefold need — family, sustenance, and 
safe sleep when the day’s work was done. We who 
look back with thoughtful eyes upon the frontiers- 
man — all links of contact with his racial past 
severed, at grips with destruction in the contenting 
of his needs— see something more, something 


FOLKWAYS 51 
larger, than he saw in the log cabin raised by his 
hands, its structure held together solely by his 
close grooving and fitting of its own strength. 
Though the walls he built for himself have gone 
with his own dust back to the earth, the symbol he 
erected for us stands. 


aS ar 


CHAPTER II 
THE TRADER 


’ Tue trader was the first pathfinder. His caravans 
began the change of purpose that was to come to 
the Indian warrior’s route, turning it slowly into 
the beaten track of communication and commerce. 
The settlers, the rangers, the surveyors, went west- 
ward over the trails which he had blazed for them 
years before. Their enduring works are com- 
memorated in the cities and farms which today lie 
along every ancient border line; but of their fore- 
runner’s hazardous Indian trade nothing remains. 
Let us therefore pay a moment’s homage here to 
the trader, who first — to borrow a phrase from 
Indian speech — made white for peace the red 
trails of war. 

He was the first cattleman of the Old Southwest. 
Fifty years before John_Findlay,* one of this class 
of pioneers, led Daniel Boone through Cumberland 


The name is spelled in various ways: Findlay, Finlay, Findley. 
52 


THE TRADER 53 


Gap, the trader’s bands of horses roamed the west- 
ern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and his 
cattle grazed among the deer on the green banks 
of the old Cherokee (Tennessee) River. He was 
the pioneer settler beyond the high hills; for he 
built, in the center of the Indian towns, the first 
white man’s cabin — with its larger annex, the trad- 
ing house — and dwelt there during the greater part 
of the year. He was America’s first magnate of 
international commerce. His furs — for which he 
paid in guns, knives, ammunition, vermilion paint, 
mirrors, and cloth — lined kings’ mantles, and hatted 
the Lords of Trade as they strode to their council 
chamber in London to discuss his business and to 
pass those regulations which might have serious- 
ly hampered him but for his resourcefulness in 
circumventing them! 

He was the first frontier warrior, for he either 
fought off or fell before small parties of hostile In- 
dians who, in the interest of the Spanish or French, 
raided his pack-horse caravans on the march. Often, 
too, side by side with the red brothers of his adop- 
tion, he fought in the intertribal wars. His was the 
first educative and civilizing influence in the Indian 
towns. He endeavored to cure the Indians of their 
favorite midsummer madness, war, by inducing 


Mar Awe 


54 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


them to raise stock and poultry and improve their 
corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not necessary 
to impute to him philanthropic motives. He was 
a practical man and he saw that war hurt his trade: 
it endangered his summer caravans and hampered 
the autumn hunt for deerskins. 

In the earliest days of the eighteenth century, 
when the colonists of Virginia and the Carolinas 
were only a handful, it was the trader who de- 
feated each suecessive attempt of French and Span- 
ish agents to weld the tribes into a confederacy for 
the annihilation of the English settlements. The 
English trader did his share to prevent what is now 
the United States from becoming a part of a Latin 
empire and to save it for a race having the Anglo- 
Saxon ideal and.speaking the English tongue. 

The colonial records of the period contain items 
which, taken singly, make small impression on the 
casual reader but which, listed together, throw a 
strong light on the past and bring that mercenary 
figure, the trader, into so bold a relief that the 
design verges on the heroic. If we wonder, for 
instance, why the Scotch Highlanders who set- 
tled in the wilds at the headwaters of the Cape 
Fear River, about 1729, and were later followed 
by Welsh and Huguenots, met with no opposition 


/ 


THE TRADER 55 


from the Indians, the mystery is solved when we 
discover, almost by accident, a few printed lines 
which record that, in 1700, the hostile natives on 
the Cape Fear were subdued to the English and 
brought into friendly alliance with them by Colo- 
nel William Bull, a trader. We read further and 
learn that the Spaniards i in Florida had long en- 
deavored to unite the tribes in Spanish and French 
territory against the English and that the influ- 
ence of traders prevented the consummation. The 
Spaniards, in 1702, had prepared to invade English 
territory with nine hundred Indians. ‘The plot was 
discovered by Creek Indians and disclosed to their 
friends, the traders, who immediately gathered 
together five hundred warriors, marched swiftly 
to meet the invaders, and utterly routed them. 
Again, when the Indians, incited by the Spanish 
at St. Augustine, rose against the English in 1715, 
and the Yamasi Massaere occurred in South Caro- 
lina, it was due to the traders that some of the 
settlements at least were not wholly unprepared to 
defend themselves. 

The early English trader was generally an in- 
telligent man; sometimes educated, nearly always 
fearless and resourceful. He knew the one sure 
basis on which men of alien blood and far separated 


nee 
56 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
stages of moral and intellectual development can | 
meet in understanding — namely, the truth of the 
spoken word. He recognized honor as the bond of 
trade and the warp and woof of human intercourse. 
The uncorrupted savage also had his plain inter- — 
pretation of the true word in the mouths of men, 
and a name for it. He called it the “Old Beloved 
Speech’’; and he gave his confidence to the man 
who spoke this speech even in the close barter 
for furs. 

We shall find it worth while to refer to the map 
of America as it was in the early days of the colo- 
nial fur trade, about the beginning of the eigh- 
’ teenth century. A narrow strip of loosely strung 
English settlements stretched from the north bor- 
der of New England to the Florida line. North 
Florida was Spanish territory. On the far distant 
southwestern borders of the English colonies were 
the southern possessions of France. The French 
sphere of influence extended up the Mississippi, 
and thence by way of rivers and the Great Lakes 
to its base in Canada on the borders of New Eng- 
land and New York. In South Carolina dwelt the 
Yamasi tribe of about three thousand warriors, 
their chief towns only sixty or eighty miles distant 
from the Spanish town of St. Augustine. On the 


ae Ad = | a i. - - i ne A er tat ta’ | 


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OlUD OY JO STE 


O00'00S 2 TETRIS 
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NUHHLAOS. 
AHL JO 
CNUNATLLLES GNV NOLLVYOTdXa. 


3 Lapeer? 


Ps 
7 


THE TRADER 57 


west, about the same distance northeast of New 
Orleans, in what is now Alabama and Georgia, lay 
the Creek nation. There French garrisons | held Mo- 
bile and Fort Alabama. The Creeks at this time 
numbered over four thousand warriors. The lands 
of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger fighting 
strength, began two hundred miles north of New 
Orleans and extended along the Mississippi. A 
hundred and sixty miles northeast of the Choc- 
taw towns were the Chickasaws, the bravest and 
most successful warriors of all the tribes south of 
the Iroquois. The Cherokees, in part seated within 
the Carolinas, on the upper courses of the Savannah 
River, mustered over six thousand men at arms. 
East of them were the Catawba towns. North of 
them were the Shawanoes and Delawares, in easy 
communication with the tribes of Canada. Still 
farther north, along the Mohawk and other rivers 
joining with the Hudson and Lake Ontario stood 
the “long houses” of the fiercest and most war- 
like of all the savages, the Troquois or Six Nation: Nations. 
The Indians along the English borders out- 
numbered the colonists perhaps ten to one. If the 
Spanish and the French had succeeded in the con- 
spiracy to unite on their side all the tribes, a red 
billow of tomahawk wielders would have engulfed 


58 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


and extinguished the English settlements. The 
_ French, it is true, made allies of the Shawanoes, 
- the Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong fac- 
\ tion of the Creeks; and they finally won over 
| the Cherokees after courting them for more than 
twenty years. But the Creeks in part, the power- 
ful Chickasaws, and the Iroquois Confederacy, 
or Six Nations, remained loyal to the English. In 
both North and South it was the influence of the 
traders—that.kept.these—red_iribes_on the Eng- 
lish_side. The Iroquois were held loyal by Sir 
, William Johnson and his deputy, George Croghan, 
the “King of Traders.” The Chickasaws fol- 
Nowed their ‘““best-beloved”’ trader, James Adair; 
and among the Creeks another inadeel ‘Lachlan_ 
McGillivray, wielded a potent influence. 
Laechlan—_McGillivray was a Highlander. He 
landed in Charleston in 1735 at the age of sixteen 
and presently joined a trader’s caravan as pack- 
horse boy. A few years later he married a woman 
of the Creeks. On many occasions he defeated 
French and Spanish plots with the Creeks for 
the extermination of the colonists in Georgia and 
South Carolina. His action in the final war with 
the French (1760), when the Indian terror was 
raging, is typical. News came that four thousand 


THE TRADER 59 


Creek warriors, reinforced by French Choctaws, 
were about to fall on the southern settlements. 
At the risk of their lives, McGillivray and another 
trader named Galphin hurried from.Charleston 
to their trading house on the Georgiafrontier 
Thither they invited several hundred Creek war- 
riors, feasted and housed them for several days, 
and finally won them from their purpose. Mc- 
Gillivray had a brilliant son, Alexander, who about 
this time became a chief in his mother’s nation — 
perhaps on this very occasion, as it was an Indian 
custom, in making a brotherhood pact, to send a 
son to dwell in the brother’s house. We shall meet 
that son again as the Chief of the Creeks and the 
terrible scourge of Georgia and Tennessee in the 
dark days of the Revolutionary War. 

The bold deeds of the early traders, if all were to 
be told, would require a book as long as the huge 
volume written by James Adair, the “English 
Chickasaw.” Adair was an Englishman who en- 
tered the Indian trade in 1735 and launched upon 
the long and dangerous trail from_Charleston 
to the upper towns of the ‘Cherokees, situated in 

_—_—_——— 


the present Monroe County, Tennessee. Thus he 


was one of the earliest pioneers of the Qld South- 
west; and he was Tennessee’s first author. “I 
_—_ ~~ 


as (J ae aoe ee 


Wf 


60 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


am well acquainted,’’ he says, “with near two 
thousand miles of the American continent” — a 
statement which gives one some idea of an early 
trader’s enterprise, hardihood, and peril. Adair’s 
‘two thousand miles”’ were twisting Indian trails 
and paths he slashed out for himself through un- 
inhabited wilds, for when not engaged in trade. 
hunting, literature, or war, it pleased him to make 
solitary trips of exploration. These seem to have 
led him chiefly northward through the Appalachi- 
ans, of which he must have been one of the first 
white explorers. 

A many-sided man was James Adair — cultured, 
for his style suffers not by comparison with other 
writers of his day, no stranger to Latin and Greek. 
and not ignorant of Hebrew, which he studied to 
assist him in setting forth his ethnological theory 
that the American Indians were the descendants 
of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Before we dismiss 
his theory with a smile, let us remember that he 
had not at his disposal the data now available 
which reveal points of likeness in custom, lan- 
guage formation, and symbolism among almost 
all primitive peoples. The formidable title-page 
of his book in itself suggests an author keenly ob- 
servant, accurate as to detail, and possessed of a 


THE TRADER 61 


versatile and substantial mind. Most of the pages 
were written in the towns of the Chickasaws, with 
whom he lived “‘as a friend and brother,” but from 
whose “natural jealousy” and “prying disposition” 
he was obliged to conceal his papers. “Never,” 
he assures us, “was a literary work begun and 
carried on with more disadvantages!” 

Despite these disabilities the author wrote a 
book of absorbing interest. His intimate sym- 
pathetic pictures_of Indian life as it was before the 
tribes had been conquered are richly valuable to 
the lover of native lore and to the student of the 
history of white settlement. The author believes, 
as he must, in the supremacy of his own race, but 
he nevertheless presents the Indians’ side of the 
argument as no man could who had not made 
himself one of them. He thereby adds interest 
to those fierce struggles which took place along 
the border; for he shows us the red warrior not as 
a mere brute with a tomahawk but as a human 
creature with an ideal of his own, albeit an ideal 
that must give place to a better. Even in view of 
the red man’s hideous methods of battle and in- 
human treatment of captives, we cannot ponder un- 
moved Adair’s description of his preparations for 
war — the fasting, the abstention from all family 


62 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


intercourse, and the purification rites and prayers 
for three days in the house set apart, while the 
women, who might not come close to their men in 
this fateful hour, stood throughout the night till 
dawn chanting before the door. Another poetic 
touch the author gives us, from the Cherokee — or 
Cheerake as he spells it — explaining that the root, 
chee-ra, means fire. A Cherokee never extinguished 
fire save on the occasion of a death, when he thrust 
a burning torch into the water and said, Neetah in- 
tahah — “‘the days appointed him were finished.” 
The warrior slain in battle was held to have been 
balanced by death and it was said of him that “he 
was weighed on the path and madelight.”” Adair 
writes that the Cherokees, until corrupted by French 
agents and by the later class of traders who poured 
rum among them like water, were honest, industri- 
ous, and friendly. They were ready to meet the 
white man with their customary phrase of good will: 
“T shall firmly shake hands with your speech.” 
He was intimately associated with this tribe from 
1735 to 1744, when he diverted his activities to 
the Chickasaws. 

It was from the Cherokees’ chief town, Great 
Telliko, in the Appalachians, that Adair explored 
the mountains. He describes the pass through the 


THE TRADER 63 


chain which was used by the Indians and which, 
from his outline of it, was probably the Cumber- 
land Gap. Herelates many incidents of the strug- 
gle with the French — manifestations even in this 
_ remote wilderness of the vast conflict that was be- 
ing waged for the New World by two imperial 
nations of the Old. 

Adair undertook, at the solicitation of Gover- 
nor Glen of South Carolina, the dangerous task of 
opening up trade with the Choctaws, a tribe -mus- 
tering upwards of five thousand warriors who were 
wholly im the Frenehnierest. Their country lay 
in what is now the State of Mississippi along the 
great river, some seven hundred miles west and 
southwest of Charleston. After passing the friendly 
Creek towns the trail led on for 150 miles through 
what was practically the enemy’s country. Adair, 
owing to what he likes to term his “usual good 
fortune,” reached the Choctaw country safely and 
by his adroitness and substantial presents won the 
friendship of the influential chief, Red Shoe, whom 
he found in a receptive mood, owing to a French 
agent’s breach of hospitality involving Red Shoe’s 
favorite wife. Adair thus created a large pro- 
English faction among the Choctaws, and his suc- 
cess seriously impaired French prestige with all 


64 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the southwestern tribes. Several times French 
Choctaws bribed to murder him, waylaid Adair on 
the trail— twice when he was alone—only to be 
baffled by the imperturbable self-possession and 
alert wit which never failed him in emergencies. 
Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides at- 
tacks on his life, £2200, for which he was never re- 
imbursed, notwithstanding Governor Glen’s agree- 
ment with him. And, on his return to Charleston, 
while the Governor was detaining him “on one 
pretext or another,”’ he found that a new expedi- 
tion, which the Governor was favoring for reasons 
of his own, had set out to capture his Chickasaw, 
trade and gather in “‘the expected great crop of 
deerskins and beaver . . . before I could possi- 
bly return to the Chikkasah Country.”’ Nothing 
daunted, however, the hardy trader set out alone. 
In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy 
rains succeed each other in these climes, so that I partly 
rode and partly swam to the Chikkasah country; for not 
expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] I took no 
leathern canoe. Many of the broad, deep creeks . . . 
had now overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and 
were unpassable to any but desperate people: . . . the 
rivers and swamps were dreadful by rafts of timber 
driving down the former and the great fallen trees 


floating in the latter... . Being forced to wade deep 
through cane swamps or woody thickets, it proved very 


THE TRADER 65 


troublesome to keep my firearms dry on which, as a 
second means, my life depended. 


Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor’s at- 
tempt to steal his trade, and later on published 
the whole story in the Charleston press and sent 
in a statement of his claims to the Assembly, 
with frank observations on His Excellency him- 
self. We gather that his bold disregard of High 
Personages set all Charleston in an uproar! 

Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own 
deeds. He devotes pages to prove that an Indian 
rite agrees with the Book of Leviticus but only a 
paragraph to an exploit of courage and endurance 
such as that ride and swim for the Indian trade. 
We have to read between the lines to find the man; 
but he well repays the search. Briefly, cidentally, 
he mentions that on one trip he was captured by 
_ the French, who were so 


well acquainted with the great damages I had done to 
them and feared others I might occasion, as to confine 
me aclose prisoner . . . in the Alebahma garrison. They 
were fully resolved to have sent me down to Mobile or 
New Orleans as a capital criminal to be hanged . . . 
but I doubted not of being able to extricate myself some way 
or other. They appointed double centries over me for 
some days before I was to be sent down in the French 
King’s large boat. They were strongly charged against 


66 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


laying down their weapons or suffering any hostile thing 
to be in the place where I was kept, as they deemed me 
capable of any mischief. . . . About.an hour before we 


were to set off by water I eecnred from them by land. 
I took through the middle of the low land covered. 
with briers at full speed. I heard the French clatter- 
ing on horseback along the path . . . and the howling 
savages pursuing ..., but my usual good fortune 
enabled me to leave them far enough behind. . . . 


One feels that a few of the pages given up to Leviti- 
cus might well have been devoted to a detailed 
account of this escape from “double centries”’ and 
a fortified garrison, and the plunge through the 
tangled wilds, by a man without gun or knife or 
supplies, and who for days dared not show himself 
upon the trail. 

There is too much of “my usual good fortune” 
in Adair’s narrative; such luck as his argues for 
extraordinary resources in the man. Sometimes 
we discover only through one phrase on a page 
that he must himself have been the hero of an 
event he relates in the third person. This seems to 
be the case in the affair of Priber, which was the 
worst of those “‘damages”’ Adair did to the French. 
Priber was “‘a gentleman of curious and specula- 
tive temper ’’ sent_by the French in 1736 to Great 
Telliko to win the Cherokees ‘to ‘their interest. 


THE TRADER 67 


At-this time Adair was trading with the Chero- 
kees. He relates that Priber, 


more effectually to answer the design of his commission 
.. . ate, drank, slept, danced, dressed, and painted him- 
self with the Indians, so that it was not easy todistinguish 
him from the natives, — he married also with them, and 
being endued with a strong understanding and retentive 
memory he soon learned their dialect, and by gradual 
advances impressed them with a very ill opinion of the 
English, representing them as fraudulent, avaritious and 
encroaching people; he at the same time inflated the 
artless savages with a prodigious high opinion of their 
own importance in the Ameriean scale of power. . . . 
Having thusinfectedthem . . . he easily formed them 
into a nominal republican government — crowned their 
old Archi-magus emperor after a pleasing new savage 
form, and invented a variety of high-sounding titles 
' for all the members of his imperial majesty’s red court. 


Priber cemented the Cherokee_empire ““by slow 
but sure degrees to the very great danger of 
our southern colonies.’’ His position was that of 
Secretary of State and as such, with a studiedly 
" provocative arrogance, he carried on correspond- 
ence with the British authorities. The colonial 
Government seems, on this occasion, to have 
listened to the traders and to have realized that 
Priber was a danger, for soldiers were sent to take 
him prisoner. The Cherokees, however, had so 


* 


68 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


firmly “‘shaked hands” with their Secretary’s ad- 
mired discourse that they threatened to take the 
warpath if their beloved man were annoyed, and 
the soldiers went home without him — to the great 
hurt of English prestige. The Cherokee empire 
had now endured for five years and was about to 
rise “into a far greater state of puissance by the 
acquisition of the Muskohge, Chocktaw and the 
Western Mississippi Indians,”’ when fortunately for 
the history of British colonization in America, “an 
accident befell the Secretary.” 

It is in connection with this “‘accident” that the 
reader suspects the modest but resourceful Adair 
of conniving with Fate. Since the military had 
failed and the Government dared not again employ 
force, other means must be found; the trader pro- 
videdthem. The Secretary with his Cherokee body- 
guard journeyed south on his mission to the Creeks. 
Secure, as he supposed, he lodged overnight in an 
Indian town. But there a company of English 
traders took him into custody, along with his bundle 
of manuscripts presumably intended for the French 
commandant at Fort Alabama, and handed him 
over to the Governor of Georgia, who imprisoned 
him and kept him out of mischief till he died. 

As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber’s fate; 


THE TRADER 69 


and as such he approves it. Asa scholar with philo- 
sophical and ethnological leanings, however, he de- 
plores it, and hopes that Priber’s valuable manu- 
scripts may ‘‘escape the despoiling hands of military 
power.” Priber had spent his leisure in compiling 
a Cherokee dictionary; Adair’s occupation, while 
domiciled in his winter house in Great Telliko, was 
the writing of his Indian Appendix to the Penta- 
teuch. As became brothers in science, they had ex- 
changed notes, so we gather from Adair’s references 
to conversations and correspondence. Adair’s diffi- 
culties as an author, however, had been increased 
by a treacherous lapse from professional etiquette 
on the part of the Secretary: “He told them [the 
Indians] that in the very same manner as he was 
their great Secretary, I was the devil’s clerk, or an 
accursed one who marked on paper the bad speech 
of the evil ones of darkness.” On his own part 
Adair admits that his object in this correspondence 
was to trap the Secretary into something more seri- 
ous than literary errata. That is, he admits it by im- 
plication; he says the Secretary “feared” it. During 
the years of their duel, Adair apparently knew 
that the scholarly compiler of the Cherokee dic- 
tionary was secretly inciting members of this par- 
ticular Lost Tribe to tomahawk the discoverer of 


-r 


70 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


their biblical origin; and Priber, it would seem, 
knew that he knew! 

Adair shows, inferentially, that land encroach- 
ment was not the sole cause of those Indian wars 
with which we shall deal in a later chapter. The 
earliest causes were the instigations of the French 
and the rewards which they offered for English 
scalps. But equally provocative of Indian ran- 
cor were the acts of sometimes merely stupid, 
sometimes dishonest, officials; the worst of these, 
Adair considered, was the cheapening of the trade 
through the granting of general licenses. 


Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns. 
. . . At my first setting out among them, a number of 
traders . . . journeyed through our various nations in 
different companies and were generally men of worth; of 
course they would have a living price for their goods, 
which they carried on horseback to the remote Indian 
countries at very great expences. . . . [The Indians] 
were kept under proper restraint, were easy in their 
minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest 
lessons daily inculcated on them . . . but according to 
the present unwise plan, two and even three Arablike 
peddlars sculk about in one of those villages . . . who 
are generally the dregs and off-scourings of our climes 
. . . by inebriating the Indians with their nominally 
prohibited and poisoning spirits, they purchase the 
necessaries of life at four and five hundred per cent 


THE TRADER 71 


cheaper than the orderly traders. . . . Instead of show- 
ing good examples of moral conduct, beside the other 
part of life, they instruct the unknowing and imitat- 
ing savages in many diabolical lessons of obscenity 
and blasphemy. 


In these statements, contemporary records bear 
him out. There is no sadder reading than the 
many pleas addressed by the Indian chiefs to vari- 
ous officials to stop-the importation of-hquor-into ~ 
their country, alleging the debauchment of their 
young men and warning the white man, with whom 
they desired to be friends, that in an Indian drink 
and blood lust quickly combined. 

Adair’s book was published-in—London in 1775. 
He wrote it to be read by Englishmen as well as 
Americans; and some of his reflections on liberty, 
justice, and Anglo-Saxon unity would not sound un- 
worthily today. His sympathies were with “the 
principles of our Magna Charta Americana”; but 
he thought ‘the threatened division of the Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples the greatest evil that could 
befall civilization. His voluminous work discloses 
a man not only of wide mental outlook but a prac- 
tical man with a sense of commercial values. Yet, 
instead of making a career for himself among his 
own caste, he made his home for over thirty years 


72 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


in the Chickasaw towns; and it is plain that, with 
the exception of some of his older brother traders, 
he preferred the Chickasaw to any other society. 
The complete explanation of such men as Adair 
we need not expect to find stated anywhere — not 
even in and between the lines of his book. The 
conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; 
the radical, in a temperament that is irked by the 
superficialities that comprise so large a part of 
conventional standards. The reason for his being 
what he was is almost the only thing Adair did not 
analyze in his book. Perhaps, to him, it was self- 
evident. We may let it be so to us, and see it most 
clearly presented in a picture composed from some 
of his brief sketches: A land of grass and green 
shade inset with bright waters, where deer and 
domestic cattle herded together along the banks; 
a circling group of houses, their white-clayed walls 
sparkling under the sun’s rays, and, within and 
without, the movement of “a friendly and saga- 
cious people,” who “‘kindly treated and watch- 
fully guarded” their white brother in peace and 
war, and who conversed daily with him in the 
Old Beloved Speech learned first of Nature. “Like 
towers in cities beyond the common size of those 
of the Indians” rose the winter and summer houses 


THE TRADER 73 


_and.the-huge-trading house which the tribe had 
built. for their best beloved friend in the town’s 
“center, because there he would be safest from at- 
tack. On the rafters hung the smoked and bar- 
becued delicacies taken in the hunt and prepared 
for him by his red servants, who were also his com- 
rades at home and on the dangerous trail. “Be- 
loved old women” kept an eye on his small sons, 
put to drowse on panther skins so that they might 
grow up brave warriors. Nothing was there of 
artifice or pretense, only “the needful things to 
make a reasonable life happy.” All was as primi- 
tive, naive, and contented as the woman whose 
outline is given once in a few strokes, proudly and 
gayly penciled: “I have the pleasure of writing 
this by the side of a Chikkasah female, as great a 
princess as ever lived among the ancient Peruvians 
or Mexicans, and she bids me be sure not to mark 
the paper wrong after the manner of most of the 
traders; otherwise it will spoil the making good 
bread or homony!” 

His final chapter is the last news of James Adair, 
type of the earliest trader. Did his bold attacks 
on corrupt officials and rum peddlers — made pub- 
licly before Assemblies and in -print — raise for 
him a dense cloud of enmity that dropped oblivion 


/ 


74 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


on his memory? Perhaps. But, in truth, his own 
book is all the history of him we need. It is the 
record of a man. He lived a full life and served 
his day; and it matters not that a mist envelops 
the place where unafraid he met the Last Enemy, 
was ‘‘ weighed on the path and made light.” 


CHAPTER IV 
THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 


| Tue great pile of ge aoe peaks was not 
_ the only barrier which held back the settler with 
his plough and his rifle from following the trader’s 
tinkling carayans into the valleys beyond. Over 
the hills OR The 
frontiersman had already felt their enmity through 
the.torch and tomahawk of their savage allies. 
By his own strength alone he could not cope with 
the power entrenched beyond the hills; so he halted. 
But that power, by its unachievable desire to be 
overlord of two hemispheres, was itself to precipitate 
events which would open the westward road. 

The recurring hour in the cycle of history, when 
the issue of Autocracy against Democracy cleaves 
the world, struck for the men of the eighteenth 
century as the second half of that century dawned. 
In our own day, happily, that issue has been 


perceived by the rank and file of the people. In 
15 


76 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


those darker days, as France and England grap- 
pled in that conflict of systems which culminated 
in the Seven Years’ War, the fundamental prin- 
ciples at stake were clear to only a handful of 
thinking men. 

But abstractions, whether clear or obscure, do 
not cause ambassadors to demand their passports. 
The declaration of war awaits the overt act. Be- 
hold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little 
fire! The casus.belli between France and England 
in theSeven Years’ War — the war which humbled 
France in Europe and lost her India and Canada — 


had to do with a_smallteg-fort built by a few Vir- 
ginians in 1754 at the Fo orks ‘s of the Ohio-River and 


wrested from them in the § same year by a company 
of Frenchmen from Canada. bin 

The French claimed the valley of the Qhio.as their 
territory;.the English claimed it as theirs. The dis- 
pute was of long standing. ‘The French claim was 
based on discovery; the English claim, on the sea- 
to-sea_charters of Virginia and other colonies and 
on treaties withthe Six?Nations. The French 
refused to“admit the right of the Six Nations 
to dispose of the territory. The English were 
inclined to maintain the validity of their treaties 
with the Indians. Especially was Virginia so 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 77 


inclined, for a large share of the Ohio lay within her 
chartered domain. 

The quarrel had entered its acute phase in 1749, 
when both the rival claimants took action to assert 


their sovereignty. The Governor of Canada sent 
an enyoy, éloron inwvi ith soldiers, to 


take formal possession of the Ohio for the King of 


ait a 


France. In the same year the English organized, 
tion of the same country; and summoned Chris- 
topher Gist, explorer, trader, and guide, from his 
home on the Y adkin and dispatched him to survey 
the land. | 

Then appeared on the scene that extraordinary 
man, Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant Governor of 
Virginia, erstwhile citizen of Glasgow. His “corre- 
spondence from Virginia during his seven ‘years’ 
tenure of office (1751-58) depicts the man with a 
vividness surpassing paint. He was as honest as 
the day — as honest as he was fearless and fussy. 
But he had no patience; he wanted things done 
and done at once, and his way was the way to do 
them. People who did not think as he thought 
didn’t think at all. On this drastic premise he 
went to work. There was of course continuous 


friction betw: i the House of Burgesses. 


78 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Dinwiddie had all a Scot’s native talent for sar- 
casm. His letters, his addresses, perhaps in par- 
ticular his addresses to the House, bristled with 
satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled 
out in full all the words he was so eager to write, 
he would have been obliged to lessen his output; 
so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar 
enough to be remarkable even though abbrevia- 
tions were the rule in that day. Even the dignity 
of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find “His 
Majesty” abbreviated to ““H M’y”’; yet a smaller 
luminary known as “His Honor” fares better, 
losing only the last letter — “‘His Hono.” “Ho.” 
stands for “house” and “‘yt” for “that,” “what,” 
“it,” and “anything else,” as convenient. Many 
of his letters wind up with “I am ve’y much 
fatig’d.”” We know that he must have been! 

It was a formidable task that confronted Din- 
widdie — inthe ee Chris- 
topher Gist returned in 175], having surveyed the 
valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto 
and Miami rivers, and in the following year the 
survey was ratified by the Indians. The Com- 
pany’s men were busy blazing trails through the 
territory and building fortified posts. But the 
French dominated the territory. They had built 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 79 


and occupied with troops Fort Le Beeuf on French 
Creek, a stream flowing into_the Allegheny. We 
may imagine Dinwiddie’s rage at this violation of 
British soil by French soldiers and how he must 
have sputtered to the young George Washington, 
when he summoned that officer and made him the 
bearer of a letter to the French commander at 
Fort Le Bocuf, 1 to demand that French troops be 
at once withdrawn from the Ohio. 

Washington made the journey to Fort Le Beeuf_ 
in December, 1753, but the mission of course 
proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote to London 
urging that a force be sent over to help the colo- 
nies maintain their rights and, under orders from 
the Crown, suggested by himself, he wrote to the 
governors of all the other colonies to join with Vir- 
ginia in raising troops to settle the ownership of 
the disputed territory. From Governor Dobbs 
of North Carolina he received an immediate re- 
sponse. By means of logic, sarcasm, and the entire 
force of his prerogatives, Dinwiddie secured from 
his own balking Assembly £10,000 with which to 
raise troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. 


There were three prominent Marylanders in the 


Ohio Company, but — or because of this — the 
Maryland Assembly voted-down the-measure for 


"6 4 
| Bei” 


80 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


a military appropriation. On June 18, 1754, Din- 
widdie wrote, with unusually full spelling for him: 


I am perswaded had His Majesty’s Com’ds to the other 
Colonies been duely obey’d, and the necessary Assist- 
ance given by them, the Fr. wou’d have long ago have 
been oblig’d entirely to have evacuated their usurp’d 
Possession of the King’s Lands, instead of w’ch they 
are daily becoming more formidable, whilst every Gov’t 
except No. Caro. has amus’d me with Expectations 
that have proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give 
any Supply, unless in such a manner as must render it 
ineffectual. 


This saddened mood with its deliberate penman- 
ship did not last long. Presently Dinwiddie was 
making a Round Robin of himself in another series 
of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assembly- 
men, frantically beseeching them for “H. M’y’s 
hono.”’ and their own, and, if not, for ““post’r’ty,” 
to rise against the cruel French whose Indians were 
harrying the borders again and “Basely, like Vir- 
min, stealing and carrying off the helpless infant” 
—as nice a simile, by the way, as any Sheridan 
ever put into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop. 
Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every 
hand by the selfish spirit of localism and jealousy 
which was more rife in America in those days than 
itis today. Though the phrase “capitalistic war” 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 81 


had not yet been coined, the great issues of English 
civilization on this continent were befogged, for the 
majority in the colonies, by the trivial fact that 
the shareholders in the Ohio Company stood to win 
by a vigorous prosecution of the war and to lose if 
it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible Gover- 
nor, however, proceeded with such men and means 
as he could obtain. 

And now in the summer of 1754 came the “overt 
act” which precipitated the inevitable war. The 
key to the valley of the Ohio.was.the tongue of — 
land at the Forks, where the Allegheny and the 
Monongahela join their waters in the Beautiful 

iver. This site — today Pittsburgh — if occu- 
pied and held by eiihertnation? would give that 
nation the command of the Ohio. Occupied it was 
for a brief hour by a small party.of Virginians, un- 
der Captain William Trent; but no sooner had they 
erected on the spot a crude fort than the French 
descended upon them. What happened then all 
the world knows: how the French built on the cap- 
tured site their great Fort Duquesne; how George 
Washington with an armed force, sent by Din- 
widdie to recapture the place, encountered French 
and Indians at Great Meadows and _buil t 
Necessity, which he was compelled to surrender; 


6 


82 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
how in the next year (1755) General Braddock ar- 


rived from across the sea and set out to take Fort. 
Duquesne, only to meet on the way the disaster 
called “‘Braddock’s Defeat’; and how, before 
another year had passed, the Seven] Years’ War 
was raging in Europe, and England was allied 
with the enemies of France. — 

From the midst of the debacle of Braddock’s 
defeat rises the figure of the young Washington. 
Twenty-three he was then, tall and spare and hard- 
bodied from a life spent largely in the open. When 
Braddock fell, this Washington appeared. Reck- 
less of the enemy’s bullets, which spanged about 
him and pierced his clothes, he dashed up and down 
the lines in an effort to rally the panic-stricken 
redcoats. He was too late to save the day, but 
not to save a remnant of the army and bring out 
his own Virginians in good order. Whether among 
the stay-at-homes and voters of credits there were 
some who would have ascribed Washington’s con- 
duct on that day to the fact that his brothers 
were large shareholders in the Ohio Company and 
that Fort Duquesne was their personal property or 
*‘ private interest,” history does not say. We may 
suppose so. 

North Carolina, the one colony which had not 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 83 


“‘amus’d”’ the Governor of Virginia “with Expec- 
tations that proved fruitless,”’ had voted £12,000 
for the war and had raised two companies of troops. 
One of these, under Edward Brice Dobbs;- son of 
Governor Dobbs, marched with Braddock; and in 
that company as wagoner went Daniel Boone, 
then in his twenty-second year. Of Boone’s part 
in Braddock’s campaign nothing more is recorded 

_save that on the march he made friends with John 

Findlay, the trader, his future guide into Ken-. 
tucky; and that, on the day of the defeat, when his 
wagons were surrounded, he escaped by slashing 
the harness, leaping on the back of one of his horses, 
and dashing into the forest. 


Meanwhile the southern tribes along the border 
were comparatively quiet. That they well knew 
a colossal struggle between the two white races 
was pending and were predisposed to ally them- 
selves with the stronger is not to be doubted. 
French influence had long been sifting through 
the formidable Cherokee nation, which still, how- 
ever, held true in the main to its treaties with the 
English. It was the policy of the Governors of 
Virginia and North Carolina to induce the Chero- 
kees to enter strongly into the war as allies of the 


84 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


English. Their efforts came to nothing chiefly be- 
cause of the purely local and suieidal Indian .poliey 
of Governor-Glen.of-Seuth-Garoelina. There had 
been some dispute between Glen and Dinwiddie 
as to the right of Virginia to trade with the Chero- 
kees; and Glen had sent to the tribes letters cal- 
culated to sow distrust of all other aspirants for 
Indian favor, even promising that certain settlers 
in the Back Country of North Carolina should be 
removed and their holdings restored to the Indians. 
These letters caused great indignation in North 
Carolina, when they came to light, and had the 
worst possible effect upon Indian relations. The 
Indians now inclined their ear to the French who, 
though fewer than the English, were at least united 
in purpose. 

Governor Glen took this inauspicious moment to 
hold high festival with the Cherokees. It was the 
last year of his administration and apparently he 
hoped to win promotion to some higher post by 
showing his achievements for the fur trade and in 
the matter of new land acquired. He plied the 
Cherokees with drink and induced them to make 
formal submission and to cede all their lands to the 
Crown. When the chiefs recovered their sobriety, 
they were filled with rage at what had been done, 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 85 


and they remembered how the French had told 
them that the English intended to make slaves of 

ll the Indians and to steal their lands. The situa- 
tion was complicated by another incident. Sev- 
eral Cherokee warriors returning from the Ohio, 
whither they had gone to fight for the British, were 

ain by frontiersmen. The tribe, in accordance 
with existing agreements, applied to Virginia for 
redress — but received none. 

There was thus plenty of powder for an explosion. 
Governor.Lyttleton, Glen’s successor, at last flung 
the torch into the magazine. He seized, as hos- 
tages, a number of friendly chiefs who were coming 
to Charleston to offer tokens of good will and 
forced them to march under guard on a military 
tour which the Governor was making (1759) with 
intent to overawe the savages. When this expedi- 
tion reached Prince George, on the upper waters 
of the Savannah, the Indian hostages were con- 
fined within the fort; and | the Governor, satisfied 
with the result of his maneuver departed s south or 
Charleston. Then followed a tragedy. Some In- 
dian friends of the imprisoned chiefs attacked the 
fort, and the commander, a popular young officer, 
was treacherously killed during a parley. The in- 
furiated frontiersmen within the fort fell upon the 


86 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


hostages and slew them all — twenty-six chiefs — 
and the Indian war was on. 

If all were to be told of the struggle which fol- 
lowed in the Back Country, the story could not be 
contained in this book. Many brave and resourceful 
men went out against the savages. We can afford 
- a ele oa: at one of them. © Hugh Wad- 
ie anes fighters i in that war, He was a young 
Ulsterman from County Down, a born soldier, with 
a special genius for fighting Indians, although he did 
not grow up on the border, for he arrived in North 
Carolina in 1753, at the age of nineteen. He was 
appointed by Governor Dobbs to command the 
second company which North Carolina had raised 
for the war, a force of 450 rangers to protect the bor- 
der counties; and he presently became the most con- 
spicuous military figure in the colony. As to his 
personality, we have only a few meager details, with 
a portrait that suggests plainly enough those quali- 
ties of boldness and craft which characterized his 
tactics. Governor Dobbs appears to have had a spe- 
cial love towards Hugh, whose family he had known 
in Ireland, for an undercurrent of almost fatherly 
pride is to be found in the old Governor’s reports to 
the Assembly concerning Waddell’s exploits. 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 87 


The terror raged for nearly three years. Cabins 
and fields were burned, and women and children 
were slaughtered or dragged away captives. Not 
only did immigration cease but many hardy settlers 
fled from the country. At length, after horrors 
indescribable and great toll of life, the Cherokees 
gave up the struggle. heir towns were invaded 
and laid waste by imperial and colonial troops, and 
they could do nothing but make peace. In 1761 
they signed a treaty with the English to hold 
‘while rivers flow and grasses grow and sun and 
moon endure.”’ 


In the previous year (1760) the imperial war 
had run its course in America. New France lay 
prostrate, and the English were supreme not only 
on the Ohio but on the St. Lawrence and the 
Great Lakes. Louisbourg, Quebec, Montreal, Os- 
wego, Niagara, Duquesne, Detroit — all. were in 
English hands. 

(Hugh Waddell and his rangers, besides serving 
with distinction in the Indian war, had taken 
part in the capture of Fort Duquesne! This feat 
had been accomplished in 1 1758 by an expedition 
under General Forbes. The troops made a terri- 
ble march over a new route, cutting a road as they 


88 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


went. It was November when they approached 
their objective. The wastes of snow and their 
diminished supplies caused such depression among 
the men that the officers called a halt to discuss 
whether or not to proceed toward Fort Duquesne, 
where they believed the French to be concentrated 
inforce. Extravagant sums in guineas were named 
as suitable reward for any man who would stalk 
and catch a French Indian and learn from him the 
real conditions inside the fort. The honor, if not 
the guineas, fell to John Rogers, one of Waddell’s 
rangers. From the Indian it was learned that the 
French had already gone, leaving behind only a 
few of their number. As the English drew near, 
they found that the garrison had blown up the 
magazine, set fire to the fort, and made off. 

Thus, while New France was already tottering, 
but nearly two years before the final capitulation at 


Qhio Company, — masters.of the Forks ofthe 


Ghio. This time they were there to stay. Where 


the walls of Fort Duquesne had crumbled in the fire 

Fort_Pitt was_to_rise, proudly bearing the name 

of England’s Great_Commoner who had directed 
TTS Ci, ; 

English arms to victory on three continents. 
With France expelled and the Indians deprived 


\ 


THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL 89 


of their white allies, the westward path lay open 
to the pioneers, even though the red man himself 
would rise again and again in vain endeavor to bar 
the way. So a new era begins, the era of explora- 
tion for definite purpose, the era of commonwealth 
building. In entering on it, we part with the ear- 
liest pioneer — the trader, who first opened the 
road for both the lone home seeker and the great 
land company. He dwindles now to the mere 
barterer and so — save for a few chance glimpses 
— slips out of sight, for his brave days as Imperial 
Scout are done. 


CHAPTER V 
BOONE, THE WANDERER 


Wuart thoughts filled Daniel Boone’s mind as he 
was returning from Braddock’s disastrous cam- 
paign in 1755 we may oak conjecture. Perhaps 
he was planning a career of ‘soldiering, for i in later 
years he was to distinguish “himself as 2 frontier 
commander in both defense and attack. Or it may 


be that his heart was full ‘of f thé wondrous tales told 
him by the trader, John-Findlay, of that Hunter’s 
Canaan, Kentucky, where buffalo and deer roamed 


in thousands. Perhaps he meant to set out ere long 
in search of the great adventure of his dreams, de- 
spite the terrible dangers of trail making across 
the zones of war into the unknown. 

However that may be, Boone straightway fol- 
lowed neither of these possible plans on his return 
to the Yadkin but halted for a different adventure. 
There, a rifle shot’s distance from his threshold, 


was offered him the oldest and sweetest of all 
90 


BOONE, THE a= 91 


hazards to the daring. He was twenty -two, strong, 
and comely and a whole man; and therefore he 
was in no mind to refuse what life held out to him 
in the person of Rebecca Bryan. Rebecca was 
the daughter of Joseph Bryan, who had come to the 
Yadkin | from. Pennsylvania some time before the 
Boones: and she was in her seventeenth year. 

Writers of an earlier and more sentimental 
period than ours have endeavored to supply, from 
the saccharine stores of their fancy, the romantic 
episodes connected with Boone’s wooing which his- 
tory has omitted to record. Hence the tale that 
the young hunter, walking abroad in the spring 
gloaming, saw Mistress Rebecca’s large dark eyes 
shining in the dusk of the forest, mistook them fora 
deer’s eyes and shot ~ his aim on this occasion 
fortunately being bad!) But if Boone’s rifle was 
missing its mark at ten paces, Cupid’s dart was 
speeding home. So runs the story concocted a hun- 
dred years later by some gentle scribe ignorant alike 
of game seasons, the habits of hunters, and the way 
of a man with a maid in a primitive world. 

Daniel and Rebecca were married in the spring 
of 1756. Squire Boone, in his capacity as justice 
of the peace, tied the knot; and in a small cabin 
built upon his spacious lands the young couple 


92 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


set up housekeeping. Here Daniel’s first two sons 
were born. In the third year of his marriage, when 
the second child was a babe in arms, Daniel re- 
moved with his wife and their young and precious 
family to Calpener: County in eastern Virginia, for 
the border was going through its darkest days of 
the French and Indian War. During the next two 
or three years we find him in Virginia engaged 
as a wagoner, hauling tobacco in season; but back 
on the border with his rifle, after the harvest, 
aiding in defense against the Indians. In 1759 he 
purchased from his father alot on Sugar Tree Creek, 
atributary of Dutchman’s C Creek (Dayie County, 
North. Carolina) 2 and built th thereon a cabin for him- 
self. The date when he brought his wife and chil- 
dren to live in their new abode on the border is 
not recorded. It was probably some time after 
the close of the Indian War. Of Boone himself 
during these years we have but scant informa- 
tion. We hear of him again in Virginia and also as 
a member of the pack-horse caravan which brought 
into the Back Country the various necessaries for 
the settlers. We know, too, that in the fall of 1760 
he was on a lone hunting trip in th the mountains 
west of the Yadkin; for until a few. years ago 
there might be. seen, still standing on the banks 


BOONE, THE WANDERER 93 


of Boone’s Creek (a small tributary of the-Wa- 
tauga) in-eastern Tennessee, a tree bearing the leg- 
end, “D Boon cilled A BAR on this tree 1760.” 
Boone was always fond of carving his exploits 
on trees, and his wanderings have been traced 
largely by his arboreal publications. In the next 
year (1761) he went with Waddell’s rangers when 
they marched with the army to_the final-subjuga-. 
tion of the Cherokee. 

That Boone and his family were back on the 
border in the new cabin shortly after the end of the 
war, we gather from the fact that in 1764 he took 
his little son James, aged seven, on one of his long 
hunting excursions. From this time dates the in- 
timate comradeship of father and son through all 
the perils of the wilderness, a comradeship to come 
to its tragic end ten years later when, as we shall 
see, the seventeen-year-old lad fell under the red 
man’s_temahawk.as his father was leading the 

first settlers towards Kentucky. In the cold nights 
of i sGoarcmp a. T Daniel and James lay under 

the frosty stars, the father kept the boy warm snug- 
gled to his breast under the broad flap of his hunting 
shirt. Sometimes the two were away from home for 
months together, and Daniel declared little James 
to be as good a woodsmap as his father. 


94 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Meanwhile fascinating accounts of the new land 
of Florida, ceded to Britain by..the.Dreaty..of-Paris 
in.1763, had leaked into the Back Country; and in 
the winter of 1765 Boone set off southward on 
horseback with seven companions. mes 
Grant; with whose army Bagne had fought in 1761, 
had been appointed Governor of the new colony 
and was offering generous inducements to settlers. 
The party traveled along the borders of South 
Carolina_and Georgia. No doubt they made the 
greater part of their way over the old Traders’ 
Trace, the “whitened”? warpath; and they suf- 
fered severe hardships. Game became scarcer as 
they proceeded. Once they were nigh to perishing 
of starvation and were saved from that fate only 
through chance meeting with a band of Indians who, | 
seeing their plight, made camp. and shared their 
food with them — according to the Indian code in 
time of peace. 


Boone's party explored 1 Florida from St. Augus- 


tine to Pensacola, a ‘and nd_Daniel be became sufficiently © 
enamored.-of_the- tropical south to p u rchase th et 
land and_a_ house. His wife, however, was unwill- ; 
ing to go to Florida, and she was not long in con- 
vincing the hunter that he would soon tire of a 
gameless country. A gameless country! Perhaps 


BOONE, THE WANDERER 95 


this was the very thought which turned the wan- 
derer’s desires again towards the land of Kentucky.* 
The silencing of the enemy’s whisper in the Chero- 
_ kee camps had opened the border forests once more 

to the nomadic rifleman. Boone was not alonein the 

desire to seek out what lay beyond. His brother-in- 

law, John Stewart, and a nephew by marriage, Ben-. 

jamin Cutbirth, or Cutbird, with two other young 
’ men, John Baker and James Ward, in 1766 crossed 
_ the Appalachian Mo ins, probably by stumbling 
upon the Indian trail winding from base to summit 
and from peak to base again over this part of the 
great hill barrier. They eventually reached the Mis- 
sissippi River and, having taken a good quantity of 
peltry on the way, they launched upon the stream 


; 


Se =o — —_ 


and came in time to New Orleans, where they made 
enn 
_ a satisfactory trade of their furs. 

Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this 
successful feat; in which two of his kmsmen had 
_ participated. He could no longer be held back. 

He must find the magic door that led through the 


. eee ee oe — Kentucky, 
with its green prairies where the _buffalo-and.deer _ 
t Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word meaning “the place 
of old fields.” Adair calls the territory “the old fields.””. The Indians 
apparently used the word “old,” as we do, in a sense of endearment 
and possession as well as relative to age. 


96 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


were as “‘ten thousand thousand cattle feeding”’ in 
the wilds, and where the balmy air vibrated with 
the music of innumerable wings. 

Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began 
his quest of the delectable country in the company 
of his friend, William Hill, who had been with him 
in Florida. Autumn was the season of departure on 
all forest excursions, because by that time the sum- 
mer crops had been gathered in and the day of the 
deer had come. By hunting, the explorers must 
feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins 
and furs they must on their return recompense 
those who had supplied their outfit. Boone, the 
incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in 
these years ever in debt for an outfit. 

‘< Booneand-Hill made their way over the Blue 
Ridge and the Alleghanies and crossed the Holston 
and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west 

"fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would 
lead them to the Ohio, they continued for at least a 
hundred miles to the westward. Here they found 
a buffalo trace, one of the many beaten out by 
the herds in their passage to the salt springs, and 
they followed it into what is now Floyd County in 
eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie 
land described by Findlay; it was rough and hilly 


_ BOONE, THE WANDERER 97 


and so overgrown with laurel as to be almost 
impenetrable. They therefore wended their way 
back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual 
hunter’s camp of skins or blankets and branches, 
and spent the winter in hunting and trapping. 
Spring found them returning to their homes on the 
Yadkin with a fair winter’s haul. 

Such urgent desire as Boone’s, however, was not 
to be defeated. The next year brought him his 
great opportunity. John Findlay came to the Yad- 
kin with a horse pack of needles and linen and, 

er’s wares to tempt the slim purses of the 


Back Country folk. The two erstwhile comrades 
in arms were overjoyed to encounter each other 
again, and Findlay spent the winter of 1768-69 in 
Boone’s cabin. While the snow lay deep outside 
and good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, 
they planned an expedition into Kentucky through 
the Gap where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. 
touch one another, which F indlay - felt _confident he 
could find. Findlay “had learned of this route from 
cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he had de- 
scended the Ohio to the site of Louisville, whence 
he had gone with some Shawanoes as a prisoner to 
their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki or Blue Licks." 
1 Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, vol. 11, pp. 215-16. 


% 


98 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


On the first day of May, 1769, Boone and 
Findlay, accompanied by John Stewart and three 
other venturesome spirits, Joseph. Holden, James 
Mooney, and William—Cooley, took horse for the 
fabled land. Passing through the Cumberland 
Gap, they built their first camp in Kentucky on 
the Red Lick fork of Station Camp Creek. 

This camp was their base of operations. From 
it, usually in couples, we infer, the explorers 
branched out to hunt and to take their observa- 
tions of the country. Here also they prepared the 
deer and buffalo meat for the winter, dried or 
smoked the geese they shot in superabundance, 
made the tallow and oil needed to keep their 
weapons in trim, their leather soft, and their kits 
waterproof. Their first ill luck befell them in De- 
cember when Boone and Stewart were captured 


_by. a band_of anoes who were returning from 
their autumn hunt on iver. The Indians 


compelled the two white men to show them the 
location of their camp, took possession of all it 
contained in skins and furs and also helped them- 
selves to the horses. They left the explorers with 
just enough meat and ammunition to provide for 
their journey homeward, and told them to depart 
and not to intrude again on the red men’s hunting 


BOONE, THE WANDERER 99 


grounds. Having given this pointed warning, the 
Shawanoes rode on northward towards their towns 
beyond the Ohio. On foot, swiftly and craftily, 
Boone and his brother-in-law trailed the band for 
two days. They came upon the camp in dead of 
night, recaptured their horses, and fled. But this 
was a game in which the Indians themselves ex- 
celled, and at this date the Shawanoes had an ad- 
-vantage over Boone in their thorough knowledge 
of the territory; so that within forty-eight hours 
the white men were once more prisoners. After 
they had amused themselves by making Boone 
caper about with a horse bell on his neck, while 
they jeered at him in broken English, “Steal horse, 
eh?” the Shawanoes turned north again, this 
time taking the two unfortunate hunters withthem. 
Boone and Stewart escaped, one day on the march, 
by a plunge into the thick tall canebrake. Though 
the Indians did not attempt to follow them through 
the mazes of the cane, the situation of the two 
hunters, without weapons or food, was serious 
enough. When they found Station Camp deserted 
and realized that their four companions had given 
them up for dead or lost and had set off on the trail 
for home, even such intrepid souls as theirs may 
have felt fear. They raced on in pursuit and 


100 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


fortunately fell in not only with their party but 
with Squire Boone, Daniel’s brother, and Alexander 
Neely, who had brought in fresh supplies of rifles, 
ammunition, flour, and horses. 

After this lucky encounter the group separated. 
Findlay was ill, and Holden, Mooney, and Cooley 
had had their fill of Kentucky; but Squire, Neely, 
Stewart, and Daniel were ready for more adven- 
tures. Daniel, too, felt under the positive neces- 
sity of putting in another year at hunting and 
trapping in order to discharge his debts and provide 
for his family. Near the mouth | of Red River the 
new party built their-station.camp. Here, in idle 
hours, Neely read aloud from a copy of Gulliver’s 
Travels to entertain the hunters while they dressed 
their deerskins or tinkered their weapons. In 
honor of the “Lorbrulgrud” of the book, though 
with a pronunciation all their own, they chris- 
tened the nearest creek; and as “‘Lulbegrud Creek” 
it is still known. i 

Before the end of the winter the two Boones 
were alone in the wilderness. Their brother-in- 
law, Stewart, had disappeared; and Neely, dis- 
_couraged by this tragic event, had returned to the 
Yadkin. In May, Squire Boone fared forth, taking 
with him the_season’s-eateh~of-beawer, otter, and 


BOONE, THE WANDERER 101 


deerskins to exchange in the North Carolinian 
trading houses for more supplies; and Daniel was \ 
left solitary in Kentucky. 

Now followed those lonely explorations which 
gave Daniel Boone his special fame above all Ken- 
tucky’s.pioneers. He was by no means the first 
white man to enter Kentucky; and when he did 
enter, it was as one of a party, under another man’s 
- guidance —if we except his former disappointing 

journey into the laurel thickets of Floyd County. 
But these others, barring Stewart, who fell there, 
turned back when they met with loss and hard- 
ship and measured the certain risks against the 
possible gains. Boone, the man of imagination, 
turned to wild.earth as to his kin. His genius lay” 
in the sense of oneness he felt with his wilderness en- 
vironment. An instinct he had which these other 
men, as courageous perhaps as he, did not possess. 

Never in all the times when he was alone in the 
woods and had no other man’s safety or counsel 
to consider, did he suffer ill fortune. The nearest 
approach to trouble that befell him when alone 
occurred one day during this summer when some 
Indians emerged from their green shelter and 
found him, off guard for the moment, standing 
on a cliff gazing with rapture over the vast rolling 


102 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


stretches of Kentucky. He was.apparently cut 
~~off_ from escape, for the savages were on thr 
sides, advancing without haste to take him, mean- 
while greeting him with mock amity. Over the 
cliff leaped Boone, and into the outspread arms 
of a friendly maple, whose top bloomed green 
about sixty feet below the cliff’s rim, and left his 
would-be captors on the height above, grunting 
their amazement. 
During this summer Boone journeyed through 
the valleys of the Kentucky and the.Licking. He 


followed the buffalo traces to the two Blue Licks 
and saw the enormous herds licking up the salt 


earth, a darkly ruddy moving mass of beasts 
whose numbers could not be counted. For many 
miles he wound along the Obi, as far as the 
Falls. He also found the Big.BoneLick with its 
mammoth fossils. 

“InJ uly, 1770, Daniel returned-to the Red River 
camp and there met Squire Boone with another 
pack of-supplies. The two brothers continued their 
hunting and exploration together for some months, 
chiefly in Jessamine County, where two caves still 
bear Boone’s name. In that winter they even 
braved the Green River ground, whence had come 
the hunting Shawanoes who had taken Daniel’s 


£1 ee et 


BOONE, THE WANDERER 103 


first fruits a year before. In the same year (1770) __ 
there had come into Kentucky from the Yadkin 
another party of hunters, called, from their lengthy 
sojourn in the twilight zone, the LongHunters. 
One of these, Gasper Mansker, afterwards related 
how the Long Hunters were startled one day by 
hearing sounds such as no buffalo or turkey ever 
made, and how Mansker himself stole silently un- 
- der cover of the trees towards the place whence 
the strange noises came, and descried Daniel Boone 
prone on his back with a deerskin under him, his 
famous tall black hat beside him and his mouth 
opened wide in joyous but apparently none too 
tuneful song. This incident gives a true character 
touch. It is not recorded of any of the men who 
turned back that they sang alone in the wilderness. 
In March, 1771, the two Boones started home- 
ward, their horses bearing the rich harvest of furs 


and deerskins which was to clear Daniel of debt 
and to insure the comfort of the family he had not 
seen for two years. But again evil fortune met 
them, this time in the very gates — for in the Cum- 
berland Gap they were suddenly surrounded by 
Indians who took everything from them, leaving 
them neither guns nor horses.” 


CHAPTER VI 
THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 


Wuen Boone returned home he found the Back 
Country..of..North..Carolina in the throes of the 
Regulation Movement. This movement, which 
had arisen first from the colonists’ need to police 
their settlements, had more recently assumed a 
political character. The Regulators were now in 
conflict with the authorities, because the frontier 
folk were suffering through excessive taxes, ex- 
tortionate fees, dishonest land titles, and the 
corruption of the courts. In May, 1771, the 
conflict lost its quasi-civil nature. The Regula- 
tors resorted to arms and were defeated by the 


forces under GovernorTIryon in the Battle _of 


\ «The Regulation Movement, which we shall follow 
in more detail further on, was a culmination cf 
those causes of unrest which turned men westward. 


To escape from oppression and to acquire land 
104 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 105 


beyond 1 the bounds of tyranny became the earnest 
desire of independent spirits throughout the Back 
Country. But there was another and more potent 
reason why the country east of the mountains no 
longer contented Boone.” Hunting and trapping 
were Boone’s chief means of livelihood. In those 
eee sold for a dollar a skin to the 
traders at the Forks or in Hillsborough; beaver at 
about two dollars and a half, and otter at from 
three to five dollars. A pack-horse could carry a 
load of one hundred dressed deerskins, and, as cur- 
rency was scarce, a hundred dollars was wealth. 
Game was fast disappearing from the Yadkin. To 
Boone above all men, then, Kentucky beckoned. 
When he returned in the spring of 1771 from his 
explorations, it was with the resolve to take his 
family at once into the great game country and 
to persuade some of his friends to join in this 
hazard of new fortunes. 

The perils of such a venture, only conjectural to 
us at this distance, he knew well; but in him there 
was nothing that shrank from danger, though he 
did not court it after the rash manner of many of 
his compeers. Neither reckless nor riotous, Boone 
was never found among those who opposed vio- 
lence to authority, even unjust authority; nor was 


106 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


he ever guilty of the savagery which characterized — 
much of the retaliatory warfare of that period when 
frenzied white men bettered the red man’s instruc- 
tion. In him, courage was illumined with tender- 
ness and made equable by self-control. Yet, though 
he was no fiery zealot like the Ulstermen who were 
to follow him along the path he had made and who 
loved and revered him perhaps because he was so 
different from themselves, Boone nevertheless had 
his own religion. It was as simple faith best summed 
up perhaps by himself in his old age when he said 
that he had been only an instrument in the of 
God to open the wilderness to settlement.” | 
Two years passed before. Boone could muster a 
company of colonists for the dangerous and de- 
lectable land. The dishonesty practiced by Lord 
Granville’s agents in the matter of deeds had made 
it difficult for Daniel and his friends to dispose of 
their acreage. When at last in the spring of 1773 
the Wanderer was prepared to depart, he was 
again delayed; this time by the arrival of a little 
son to whom was given the name of John. By 
September, however, even this latest addition to 
the party was ready for travel; and that month 
saw the Boones with a small caravan of families 
journeying towards Powell’s Valley, whence the 


en > 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 107 


Warrior’s Path took its way through Cumberland 
Gap. At this point on the march they were to 
be joined by William Russell, a famous pioneer, 
from the Clinch River, with his family and a 
few neighbors, and by some of Rebecca Boone’s 
kinsmen, the Bryans, from the lower Yadkin, with 
a company of forty men. 

Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little — 
.only that she was born a Bryan, was of low stature _ 
and dark eyed, that she bore her husband ten 
children, and lived beside him to old age. Except 
on his hunts and explorations, she went with him 
from one cabined home to another, always deeper 
into the wilds. There are no portraits of her. We 
can see her only as a shadowy figure moving along 
the wilderness trails beside the man who accepted 
his destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of 
lesser faith. 


He tires not forever on his leagues of march 

Because her feet are set to his footprints, 

And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his 
shoulder. 


Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain. 
over Powell’s Valley to await the Bryan contingent 
and dispatched two young men.under the leader- 
ship of his son James, then in his seventeenth year, 


108 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


to notify Russell of the party’s arrival. As the 
boys were returning with Russell’s son, also a strip- 
ling, two of his slaves, and some white laborers, 
they missed the path and went into camp for the 
night. When dawn broke, disclosing the sleepers, 
a small war band of Shawanoes, who had been spy- 
ing on Boone and his party,, fell upon them and. 
slaughtered.them. Only one of Russell’s slaves 
and a laborer escaped, The tragedy seems aug- 
mented by the fact that the point where the boys 
lost the trail and made their night quarters was 
hardly three miles from the main camp — to which 
an hour later came the two survivors with their 
gloomy tidings. Terror now took hold of the little 
band of emigrants, and there were loud outcries 
for turning back. The Bryans, who had arrived 
meanwhile, also advised retreat, saying that the 
‘signs’? about the scene of blood indicated an 
Indian_uprising. Daniel carried the scalped body 
of his son, the boy-comrade of his happy hunts, 
to the camp and buried it there at the the beginning 
of the trail. His voice alone urged that they they go on. 
Fortunately indeed, as events turned out, Boone 
was overruled, and the expedition was abandoned. 
The Bryan party and the others from North Caro- 
lina went back to the Yadkin. Boone-himself with 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 109 
his family accompanied Russell to the-Clinch set- 


tlement, where he erected a temporary cabin on 
the farm of one of the settlers, and then set out 
alone on the chase to earn provision for his wife and 
children through the winter. 


Those who prophesied an Indian war were not 
mistaken. When the snowy hunting season had 
passed and the “Powwowing Days”’ were come, 
the Indian war drum rattled in the medicine house 
from the borders of Pennsylvania to those of Caro- 
lina. The causes of the strife for which the red 
men were making ready must be briefly noted to 
help us form a just opinion of the deeds that fol- 
lowed. Early writers have usually represented the 
frontiersmen as saints in buckskin and the Indians 
as fiends without the shadow of a claim on either 
the land or humanity. Many later writers have 
merely reversed the shield. The truth is that the 
Indians and the borderers reacted upon each other 
to the hurt of both. Paradoxically, they grew like 
enough to hate one another with a savage hatred 
—and both wanted the land..~ 

Land! Land! was the slogan of all sorts and 
conditions of men. Tidewater officials held solemn 
powwows with the chiefs, gave wampum strings, 


110 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


and forthwith incorporated.* Chiefs blessed their 
white brothers who had “‘forever brightened the 
chain of friendship,” departed home, and pro- 
ceeded to brighten the blades of their tomahawks 
and to await, not long, the opportunity to use them 
on casual hunters who carried in their kits the com- 


3 


pass, the “land-stealer.”” Usually the surveying 
hunter was a borderer; and on him the tomahawk 
descended with an accelerated gusto. Private 
citizens also formed land companies and sent out 
surveyors, regardless of treaties. Bold frontiers- 
men went into No Man’s Land and staked out 
theirclaims. In the very year when disaster turned 
the Boone party back, James Harrod had entered 
Kentucky from Pennsylvania and had marked the 
site of a settlement. ~~ Jo-" 

Ten years earlier (1763), the King had issued the 
famous and much misunderstood Proclamation 
restricting his “‘loving subjects” from the lands 
west of the mountains. The colonists interpreted 
this document as a tyrannous curtailment of their 
liberties for the benefit of the fur trade. We know 
now that the portion of this Proclamation relat- 
ing to western settlement was a wise provision 


t The activities of the great land companies are described in 
Alvord’s exhaustive work, The Mississippr Valley in British Politics- 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 111 


designed to protect the settlers on the frontier by 
allaying the suspicions of the Indians, who viewed 
with apprehension the triumphal occupation of 
that vast territory from Canada to the Gulf of 
Mexico by the colonizing English. By seeking to 
compel all land purchase to be made through the 
Crown, it was designed likewise to protect the 


3 


Indians from “whisky purchase,” and to make 
impossible the transfer of their lands except with 
consent of the Indian Council, or full quota of 
headmen, whose joint action alone conveyed what 
the tribes considered to be legal title. Sales made 
ecording to this form, Sir William Johnson. de- 
clared to the Lords of Trade, he had never known 
to be repudiated by the Indians. This paragraph 
of the Proclamation was in substance an embodi- 
ment of Johnson’s suggestions to the Lords of 
Trade. Its purpose was square dealing and paci- 
fication; and shrewd men such as Washington 
recognized that it was not intended as a final check 
to expansion. “‘A temporary expedient to quiet the 
minds of the Indians,’’ Washington called it, and 
then himself went out along the Great Kanawha 
and into Kentucky, surveying land. 
It will be asked what had become of _the Ohio 


Companyof-Virginia and that fort at the Forks of 


112 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the Ohio, once a bone of contention between France 
and-England. Fort.Pitt, as it was now called, had 
fallen foul of another dispute, this time between 
Virginia.and Pennsylvania. Virginia claimed that 
the far western.corner_of her boundary ascended 
just far enough north to take in Fort Pitt. Penn- 
sylvania asserted that it did nothing of the sort. 
The Ohio Company had_meanwhile been merged 
into.the Walpole Company. George Croghan, at 
Fort_Pitt, was the Company’s agent and as such 
was accused by Pennsylvania of favoring from 
ulterior motives the claims of Virginia. Hot- 
heads in both colonies asseveraied that the In- 
dians were secretly being stirred up in connection 
with the boundary disputes. If it does not very 
clearly appear how an Indian rising would have 
settled the ownership of Fort Pitt, it is evident 
enough where the interests of Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania clashed./| Virginia wanted land for.settle- 
ment and. speculations? ennsylvania 2 wanted the 
Indians left in possession for the_benefit of the 
fur. ‘trade. So far from stirring up the Indians, as 
his enemies declared, Croghan was as usual giving 
away all his substance to keep them quiet.' Indeed, 


: The suspicion that Croghan and Lord Dunmore, the Governor of 
Virginia, were instigating the war appears to have arisen out of the 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 113 


during this summer of 1774, eleven hundred Indians 
were encamped about,Fort.Pitt visiting him. 

Two hundred thousand acres in the West — 
Kentucky and West Virginia — had been promised 
to the colonial officers and soldiers who fought 
in the Seven Years’ War. But after making the 
Proclamation the British Government had delayed 
issuing the patents. Washington interested him- 
self in trying to secure them; and Lord Dunmore, 
who also had caught the “land-fever,”’* prodded 
the British authorities but won only rebuke for 
his inconvenient activities. Insistent, however, 
Dunmore sent out parties of surveyors to fix the 
bounds of the soldiers’ claims. James Harrod, Cap- 
tain Thomas Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and three 
McAfee brothers entered Kentucky, by the.Qhio, 
under Dunmore’s orders. John Floyd went in by 


eonduct of Dr., John Connolly, Dunmore’s agent and Croghan’s 
nephew. Croghan had induced the Shawanoes to bring under escort 
to Fort Pitt certain English traders resident in the Indian towns. The 
escort was fired on by militiamen under command of Connolly, who 
also issued a proclamation declaring a state of war to exist. Connolly, 
however, probably acted on his own initiative. He was interested 
in land on his own behalf and was by no means the only man at that 
time who was ready to commit outrages on Indians in order to obtain 
it. As Croghan lamented, there was “too great a spirit in the frontier 
people for killing Indians.” 

tSee Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, vol. 11, pp. 
191-94. 


8 


a Se.) a 


114 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
the Kanawha as Washington’s agent. A bird’s-eye 


view of that period would disclose to us very few 
indeed of His Majesty’s loving subjects who were 
paying any attention to his proclamation... Early 

in 1774,.Harzad began the building of cabins and a 
fort, and planted corn on the > site of Harrodsburg. 


Thus to him and not. to_Boone-fell-the honor of 
founding...the.first...permanent..white~settlement 
in. Kentucky 


When summer came, its thick verdure proffering 
ambuscade, the air hung tense along the border. 
Traders had sent in word that Shawanoes, Dela- 
wares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were 
refusing all other exchange than rifles, ammuni- 
tion, knives, and hatchets. White men were shot 
down in their fields from ambush. Dead In- 
dians lay among their own young corn, their scalp 
locks taken. There were men of both races who 
wanted war and meant to have it — and with it 
the land. 

Lord Dunmore, the Governor, resolved that, if 
war were inevitable, it should be fought out in 
the Indian country. With this intent, he wrote to 


Colonel Andrew-Lewis-of Botetourt-County, Com- 


mander_ of the Southwest-Militia, instructing him 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 115 


to raise a respectable body of troops and “join me 
either at the mouth of the Great.Kanawha or 
Wheeling, or such other part of the Ohio as may 
be most convenient for you to meet me.” The 
Governor himself witha force of twelve hundred 
proceeded to Fort Pitt, where Croghan, as we 
have seen, was extending his hospitality to eleven 
hundred warriors from the disaffected tribes-—~ 
On receipt of the Governor’s letter, Andrew 
Lewis sent out expresses to his brother Colonel 
Charles Lewis, County Lieutenant of Augusta, 
and to Colonel William Preston, County Lieuten- 
ant of Fincastle, to raise men and bring them with 
“all speed to the rendezvous at Camp Union (Lewis- 
burg) on the Big Levels of the Greenbrier (West 
Virginia). Andrew Lewis summoned these off- 
cers to an expedition for “‘reducing our inveterate 
enemies to reason.” Preston called for volunteers 
to take advantage of “the opportunity we have so 
long wished for . . . this useless People may now 
at last be Oblidged to abandon their country.” 
These men were among not only the bravest but 
the best of their time; but this was their view of 
the Indian and his alleged rights. To eliminate 


> 


this “useless people,’’ inveterate enemies of the 


white race, was, as they saw it, a political necessity 


ott) eae oe ee, n>. Se ee 
\ 1 oe 


116 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


and a religious duty. And we today who profit by 
their deeds dare not condemn them. 
Fervor less solemn was aroused in other quar- 


Captain Michael Cresap of Maryland, were wait- 
ing for the freshets to sweep them down the Ohio 
into Kentucky. When thenews reached them, they 
greeted it with the wild monotone chant and the 
ceremonies preliminary to Indian warfare. They 
planted the war pole, stripped and painted them- 
selves, and starting the war dance called on 


ce 


Cresap to be their “white leader.” The captain, 
however, declined; but in that wild circling line 
was one who was a white leader indeed. He wasa 
sandy-haired boy of twenty — one of the bold race 
of English Virginians, rugged and of fiery counte- 
nance, with blue eyes intense of glance and deep 
set under a high brow that, while modeled for 
power, seemed threatened in its promise by the too 
sensitive chiseling of his lips. With every nerve 
straining for the fray, with thudding of feet and 
crooning of the blood song, he wheeled with those 
other mad spirits round the war pole till the set 
of sun closed the rites. “That evening two scalps 
were brought into camp,” so a letter of his reads. 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 117 


Does the bold savage color of this picture affright 
us? Would we veil it? Then we should lose some- 
thing of the true lineaments of George Rogers. 
Clark,-who, within four short years, was to lead 
a tiny army of tattered and starving backwoods- 
men, ashamed to quail where he never flinched, 
through barrens and icy floods to the conquest of 
. Though Cresap had rejected the réle of “white 
leader,” he did not escape the touch of infamy. 
“Cresap-*s-"War” was the name the Indians gave 
to the bloody encounters between small parties. of 
whites and Indians, which followed on that war ~ 
dance and scalping, during the summer months. 
One of these encounters must be detailed here 
because history has assigned it as the immediate 
cause of Dunmore’s War. 

Greathouse, Sapperton, and King, tlifee traders 
who had a post on Yellow.Creek, a tributary of the 
Ohio fifty miles below Pittsburgh, invited several 
Indians from across the stream to come and drink 
with them and their friends. Among the Indians 
were two or three men of importance in the Minge— 
tribe. There were also some women, one of whom 
was the Indian wife of Colonel John Gibson, an 
educated man who had distinguished himself as" 


te Ge fa el ee ” 


118 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
a soldier with Forbes.in.1758. That the Indian 


came in amity and apprehended no treachery wa 
proved by the presence of the women. Gibson’ 
wife carried her half-caste baby in her shawl. Th 
disreputable traders plied their guests with drinl 
to the point of intoxication and then murderec 
them. King shot the first man and, when he fell 
cut his throat, saying that he had served many 
a deer in that fashion. Gibson’s Indian wife flec 
and was shot down in the clearing. A man fol 
lowed to dispatch her and her baby. She held th 
child up to him pleading, with her last breath 
that he would spare it because it was not India 


but “‘one.of-yours.’’ The mother dead, the chile 


i 


was later sent to Gibson. Twelve Indians in al 
were killed. 

-Meanwhile Cro Croghan had persuaded the Iroquoi 
to peace. With the help of f Dayid Zeisberger, th 
Moravian missionary, and White Eyes, a Delawar 
chief, he and Dunmore had won over the Delay awar 


warriors. In the Cherokee councils, Oconostot: 


demanded that the treaty of peace signed in 176 
be kept. The Shawanoes, however, led by Corn 


stalk, were implacable: and they had as allies th 


Ottawas and Mingos, who had entered the counci 
with them. 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 119 


A famous chief of the day and one of great in- 
fluence over the Indians, and also among the white 
officials who dealt with Indian affairs, was Tach- 
nech-dor-us, or Branching Oak of the.Korest, a 
Mingo who had taken the name of Logan out 
of compliment to James Logan of Pennsylvania. 
Chief Logan had recently met with so much re- 
proach from his red brothers for his loyalty to the 
whites that he had departed _— the Ming o town 
Srenined to assist the Shawanoes and had al- 
ready taken some white scalps, he repaired to the 
place where the Mingos were holding their war 
council to exert his powers for peace. There, in 
presence of the warriors, after swaying them from 
their purpose by those oratorical gifts which gave 
him his influence and his renown, he took the 
war hatchet that had already killed, and buried it 
in proof that vengeance was appeased. Upon this 
scene there entered a oe Creek 
with the news of the murders committed there by 
the he three traders. The Indian whose throat had 
fen al slit as King had served deer was Logan’s 
brother. Another man slain was his kinsman. 
The woman with the baby was his sister. Logan 
tore up from the earth the bloody tomahawk and, 


120 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


raising it above his head, swore that he would not 
rest till he had taken ten white lives to pay foreach 
one of hiskin. Again the Mingo warriors declared 
for_war and this.time were not dissuaded. But 
Logan did not join this red army. He went out 
alone to wreak his vengeance, slaying and scalping. 


Meanwhile Dunmore prepared to push the war 
with the utmost vigor. His first concern was te 


recall the surveying parties from Kentucky, and 


for so hazardous an errand he needed the services 


of a man whose endurance, speed, and woodcraft 
were equal to those of any Indian.scout afoot. 
Through Colonel Preston, his orders were conveyed 
to Daniel.Boone, for Boone’s fame had now spread 
from the border to the tidewater regions. It was 
stated that “‘Boone would lose no time,”’ and “i 
they are alive, it is indisputable but Boone must 
find them.”’ 

So Boone set out in company with Michael 
Stoner, another expert-—woodsman. His general 
instructions were to go down the Kentucky River 
to_Preston-s- Salt_Lick and across oS ee 


‘Lick 0 on n the ¢ Cumberland River. Indian war par- 


ties were moving under cover across “the Dark 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 121 


and Bloody Ground’”’ to surround the various 
groups of surveyors still at large and to exterminate 
them. Boone made his journey successfully. He 
found John-EKloyd, who was surveying for Wash- 
ington; he sped up to where Harrod and his band 
were building cabins and sent them out, just in 
time as it happened; he reached all the outposts of 
Thomas. Bullitt’s party, only one of whom fell a 
victim to the foe’; and, undetected by the Indians, 
he brought himself and Stoner home in safety, after 
covering eight hundred miles in sixty-one days. 
Harrod and his homesteaders immediately en- 
listed in the army. How eager-Boone was to go 
with the forces under Lewis-is seen in the official 
correspondence relative to Dunmore’s.War. Floyd 
wanted Boone’s help in raising a company: “Cap- 
tain Bledsoe says that Boone has more [influence] 
than any man now disengaged; and you know 
what Boone has done for me . . . for which reason 
Tlove the man.” Even the border, it would seem, 
had its species of pacifists who were willing to let 
others take risks for them, for men hung back from 
recruiting, and desertions were the order of the 
day. Major Arthur Campbell hit upon a solution 


t Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of the country and 
was cut off. 


122 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


of the difficulties in West Fincastle. He was con- 
vinced that Boone could raise a company and hold 
the men loyal. And Boone did. 

For some reason, however, Daniel’s desire to 
march with the army was denied. Perhaps it was 
because just such a man as he—and, indeed, 
there was no other — was needed to guard the set- 
tlement. Presently he was put in command of 
Moore’s Fort in Clinch Valley, and his “diligence” 
received official approbation. A little later the 
inhabitants of the valley sent out a petition to 
have Boone made a “captain” and given supreme 
command of the lower forts. The settlers de- 
manded Boone’s promotion for their own security. 


The land it is good, it is just to our mind, 

Each will have his part if his Lordship be kind, - 
The Ohio once ours, we’ll live at our ease, 

With a bottle and glass to drink when we please. 


So sang the army poet, thus giving voice, as bards 
should ever do, to the theme nearest the hearts of 
his hearers — in this case, Land! Presumably his 
ditty was composed on the eve of the march from 
Lewisburg, for it is found in a soldier’s diary. 

On the evening of October 9, noes ie Lewis 
with his force of eleven hundred frontiersmen 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 123 


was encamped on Point Pleasant at the junction 
of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio. Dunmore 
in the fedntinic had led his forces into, Ohio 
and had erected Fort Gower at the mouth of the 
Hockhocking River, where he waited for word 
from Andrew Lewis." 

The movements of the two armies were being 
observed by scouts from the force of red warriors 
gathered in Ohio under the great leader of the 
Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the 


sn ] 


two armies of his enemy and to crush them in 
turn before they could come together. His first 
move was to launch an attack on Lewis at Point, 


tt has been customary to ascribe to Lord Dunmore motives of 
treachery in failing to make connections with Lewis; but no real 
evidence has been advanced to support any of the charges made 
against him by local historians. The charges were, as Theodore 
Roosevelt says, “an afterthought.” Dunmore was a King’s man in 
the Revolution; and yet in March, 1775, the Convention of the Colony 
of Virginia, assembled in opposition to the royal party, resolved: 
“The most cordial thanks of the people of this colony are a tribute 
justly due to our worthy Governor, Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, 
wise, and spirited conduct which at once evinces his Excellency’s 
attention to the true interests of this colony, and a zeal in the execu- 
tive department which no dangers can divert, or difficulties hinder, 
from achieving the most important services to the people who have 
the happiness to live under his administration.” (See American Ar- 
chives, Fourth Series, vol. 11, p. 170.) Similar resolutions were passed 
by his officers on the march home from Ohio; at the same time, the 
officers passed resolutions in sympathy with the. American cause. 
Yet it was Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore from Virginia. 
Well might Dunmore exclaim, “That it should ever come to this!”’ 


\ 


124 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Pleasant. In the dark of night, Cornstalk’s Indians 
crossed the Ohio on raits, intending to surprise 2 the 
white man’s camp.at-dawn. ‘They would have 
succeeded but for the chance that three or four of 
the frontiersmen, who had risen before daybreak to 
hunt, came upon the Indians creeping towards the 
camp. Shots were exchanged. An Indian and a 
white man dropped. The firing roused-the camp. 
’ Three hundred men in two lines under, Charles 
\ Lewis. and William.Fleming sallied forth expect- 
ing to engage the vanguard of the enemy but en- 
countered almost the whole force of from eight 
hundred to a thousand Indians before the rest of 
the army could come into action. Both officers 
were wounded, Charles Lewis fatally. The battle, 
which continued from dawn until an hour be- 
\. fore sunset, was the bloodiest in Virginia’s long se- 
“ties of Indian wars. The frontiersmen fought as 
such men ever fought — with the daring, bravery, 
swiftness of attack, and skill in taking cover which 
were the tactics of their day, even as at a later time 
many of these same men fought at King’ s Moun- 
tain and in Illinois the battles that did so ‘much 
to turn the tide in the Revolution.* 


t With Andrew Lewis on this day were Isaac Shelby and Wil- 
liam Campbell, the victorious leaders at King’s Mountain, James 
eal 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 125 


Colonel Preston wrote to Patrick Henry that the 
enemy behaved with “inconceivable bravery,”’ the 
head men walking about in the time of action 
exhorting their men to “lie close, shoot well, be 
strong, and fight.”” The Shawanoes ran up to the 
muzzles of the English guns, disputing every foot 
of ground. Both sides knew well what they were 
ae for'— othe zich _Jand_held_in a_semicircle 


a before ate the Indians, mistaking 
a flank movement by Shelby’s contingent for the 
arrival of reinforcements, retreated across. the Ohio... 
Many of their most ‘noted warriors had fallen and 
among them the Shawano chief, Puck-e-shin-wa, 
father of a famous son, Tecumseh.* Yet they were 
unwilling to accept defeat. When they heard that 
Dunmore was now marching overland to cut them 
off from.their towns, their fury blazed anew. ‘Shall 


we first kill all our women and children and then 


Robertson, the “father of Tennessee,”’ Valentine Sevier, Daniel Mor- 
gan, hero of the Cowpens, Major Arthur Campbell, Benjamin Logan, 
Anthony Bledsoe, and Simon Kenton. With Dunmore’s force were 
Adam Stephen, who distinguished himself at the Brandywine, George 
Rogers Clark, John Stuart, already noted through the Cherokee wars, 
and John Montgomery, later one of Clark’s four captains in Illinois. 
The two last mentioned were Highlanders. Clark’s Illinois force was 
largely recruited from the troops who fought at Point Pleasant. 
1 Thwaites, Documentary History of Dunmore’s War. 


126 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


fight till we ourselves are slain?” Cornstalk, in 
irony, demanded of them; “No? Then I will go 
and make peace.” 

, By the treaty compacted between the chiefs.and 
Boni Dunmore, the Indians gave. up.all claim to the 
lands _south of the Ohio, even for en_for hunting, and 
agreed t to allow boats to pass unmolested. In this 
treaty the Minges. refused to join, and a detach- 
ment of Dunmore’s troops made a punitive expedi- 
tion to their towns. Some discord arose between 
Dunmore and Lewis’s_frontier forces because, 
since the Shawanoes had made peace, the Gover- 


' 


nor.would not allow the frontiersmen to destroy 
the Shawano towns. 

Of all the chiefs, Logan alone still held aloof. 
Major Gibson undertook to fetch him, but Logan 
refused to come to the treaty grounds. He sent 
by Gibson the short speech which has lived as an 
example of the best Indian oratory: 


I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered 
Logan’s cabin hungry and he gave him not meat: if 
ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. 
During the course of the last long and bloody war, 
Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. 
Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen 
pointed as they passed and said, “Logan is the friend 
of the white men.” I had even thought to have lived 


THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY 127 


with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel 
Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, 
murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing 
my women and children. There remains not a drop of 
my blood in the veins of any living creature. This 
called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have 
killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance: for my 
country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not 
harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan 
never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his 
life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.* 


By rivers and trails, in large and small companies, 
started home the army that had won the land. 


The West Fincastle troops, from the lower settle- 
ments of the Clinch and Holston valleys, were to 
return by the Kentucky River, while those from 


t Some writers have questioned the authenticity of Logan’s speech, 
inclining to think that Gibson himself composed it, partly because of 
the biblical suggestion in the first few lines. That Gibson gave biblical 
phraseology to these lines is apparent, though, as Adair points out 
there are many examples of similitude in Indian and biblical expres- 
sion. But the thought is Indian and relates to the first article of the 

‘Indian’s creed, namely, to share his food with the needy. ‘There 
remains not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature”’ 
is a truly Indian lament. Evidently the final four lines of the speech 
are the most literally translated, for they have the form and the primi- 
tive rhythmic beat which a student of Indian poetry quickly recog- 
nizes. The authenticity of the speech, as well as the innocence of 
Cresap, whom Logan mistakenly accused, was vouched for by George 
Rogers Clark in a letter to Dr. Samuel Brown dated June 17, 1798. 
See Jefferson papers, Series 5, quoted by English, Conquest of the 
Country Northwest of the River Ohio, vol. 11, p. 1029. 


128 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the upper valley would take the shorter way up 
Sandy Creek. To keep them in provisions during 
the journey it was ordered that hunters be sent out 
along these routes to kill and barbecue meat and 
place it on scaffolds at appropriate spots. 

The way home by the Kentucky was a long road 
for weary and wounded men with hunger gnawing 
under their-belts. We know who swung out along 
the trail to provide for that little band, “dressed 
in deerskins colored black, and his hair plaited 
and bobbed up.” It was Daniel Boone — now, 
by popular demand, Captain Boone — just “dis- 
charged from Service,’’ since the valley forts 
needed him no longer. Once more only a hunter, 
he went his way over Walden Mountain — past his 
son’s grave marking the place where he had been 
turned back — to serve the men who had opened 
the gates. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE DARK AND BLOODY-GROUND Koa 
Wirs the coming of spring Daniel Boone’s desire, 
so long cherished and deferred, to make a way for 
his neighbors through the wilderness was to be 
fulfilled at last. But ere his ax could slash the 
thickets from the homeseekers’ path, more than 
‘two hundzed-settlers had-entered Kentucky by 
the northern waterways. Eighty or more of these 
settled at Harrodsburg, where Harrod was laying 
out his town on a generous plan, with “in-lots”’ 
of half an acre and “‘out-lots”’ of larger size. 
Among those associated with Harrod was George 
Rogers Clark, who had surveyed claims for himself 
during the year befor Pn gt 
~ While over two hundred colonists were picking 
out home sites wherever their pleasure or prudence. 
dictated, a gigantic land promotion scheme — in- 
volving the very tracts where they were sowing 


their first corn — was being set afoot in North 
° 129 


1 A i eke ere 
fa ’ 


\ 


130 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Carolina by a body of men who figure in the early | 
history_of Kentucky as the Transylvania Com- 
pany. The leader of this organization was Judge 
Richard Henderson. Judge Henderson dreamed 
a big dream. His castle in the air had imperial 
proportions. He resolved, in short, to purchase 
from the Cherokee. Indians the—larger—part—of 
Kentucky and to establish there a colony after 
the manner and the economic form of the English 
Lords Proprietors, whose day in America was so 
nearly done. Though in the light of history the plan 
loses none of its dramatic features, it shows the 
practical defects that must surely have prevented 
its realization. Like many another Cesar hunger- 
ing for empire and staking all to win it, the pros- 
pective lord of Kentucky, as we shall see, had left 
the human equation out of his calculations. 


t Richard Henderson (1734-1785) was the son of the High Sheriff 
of Granville County. At first an assistant to his father, he studied 
law and soon achieved a reputation by the brilliance of his mind and 
the magnetism of his personality. As presiding Judge at Hillsborough 
he had come into conflict with the violent element among the Regula- 
tors, who had driven him from the court and burned his house and 
barns. For some time prior to his elevation to the bench, he had been 

’ engaged in land speculations. One of Boone’s biographers suggests 
' that Boone may have been secretly acting as Henderson’s agent during 
his first lonely explorations of Kentucky. However this may be, it 
does not appear that Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with 
Henderson when in September, 1773, they made their first attempt to 
enter Kentucky as settlers. 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 131 


Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on 
the Yadkin; and it was Boone’s detailed reports 
of the marvelous richness and beauty of Kentucky 
which had inspired him to formulate his gigantic 
scheme and had enabled him also to win to his 
support several men of prominence in the Back 
Country. To sound the Cherokees regarding the 
purchase and to arrange, if possible, for a confer- 
ence, Henderson dispatched Boone to the Indian 
towns in the early days of 1775. 
ince we have just learned that Dunmore’s War 
compelled the Shawanoes and their allies to relin- 
quish their right to-Kentucky, that, both before 
and after that eve ent, government surveyors were 
in the territory surveying for the soldiers” claims, 
and that private individuals. had already laid out 
town sites and staked holdings, it may be asked 
Slat ri right of ownership the Cherokees possessed 
in Kentueky,-that-Henderson_desired-to_purchase 
it of them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems 
to have been hardly less vague to the red men than 
it was to the whites. Several of the nations had 
laid claim to the territory. As late as 1753, it will 
be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a 
town at Blue Licks, for John Findlay had been 
taken there by some of them. But, “before Findlay 


132 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 

guided Boone through.the.Gap-in-1%769; the Sha- 
wanoes had been driven out by the Iroquois, whe 
claimed suzerainty over them as well as over the 


Cherokees. In 1768,.the Irequois*had-eeded-Ken- 
tucky to the British Crown_by-the.treaty of Fort 


Stanwix; ‘whereupon the Cherokees had protested 
So V vociferously that the Crown’s Indian agent, te 
quiet them, had signed a collateral agreement with 
them. Though claimed by many, Kentucky was 
by common consent not inhabited by any of the 
tribes. It was the great Middle Ground where the 
Indians hunted. It was the Warriors’ Path ove 
which they rode from north and south to slaughter 
and where many of their fiercest encounters took 
place. However shadowy the title which Hender- 
son purposed to buy, there was one all-sufficing 
reason why he must come to terms with the Chero. 
kees:their northernmost..towns.in..Tennessee lay 
only fifty.or.sixty miles below Cumberland Gap anc 
hence commanded the route over which he mus‘ 
lead colonists into his « empire beyond. the hills. 
The conference took place early in March, 1775. 
at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River 
Twelve hundred Indians, led by their “town 
chiefs”” — among whom were the old warrior and 
the old statesman of their nation, Oconostota and 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 133 


Attakullakulla — came to the treaty grounds and 
were received by Henderson and his associates and 
several hundred white men who were eager for a 
chance to settle on new lands. Though Boone was 
now on his way into Kentucky for the Transyl- 
vania Company, “other feocdeds leaders of renown 
or with their fame still to win were present, and 
among them James Robertson, of serious mien, and 
that blond gay knight in buckskin, John Sevier. 
It is a dramatic picttre we evolve for ourselves 
from the meager narratives of this event — a mass 
of painted Indians moving through the sycamores 
by the bright water, to come presently into a tense, 
immobile semicircle before the large group of armed 
frontiersmen seated or standing about Richard Hen- 
derson, the man with the imperial dream, the ready 
speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory 
won the hearts of all who came under their sway. 
What though the Cherokee title be a flimsy one at 
best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The 
spirit of Forward March! is there in that great 
canvas framed by forest and sky. The somber 
note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of 
the brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, 
Dragging Canoe, warrior and seer and hater of white 
men, who urges his tribesmen against the sale and, 


134 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


when they will not hearken, springs from their midst : 
into the clear space before Henderson and his band 
of pioneers and, pointing with uplifted arm, warns 
them that a dark cloud hangs over the land the 
white man covets which to the red man has long 
been a bloody ground.' 

The purchase, finally consummated, included the 
‘country lying between the Kentucky ai and Cum- 
berland Rivers — almost all the present State of 
Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the_ 
Cumberland. River and_its.tributaries,.except.cer- 
tain lands previously leased by the Indians.to.the. 
Watauga Colony. Thetract comprised abouttwenty 
million acres and extended into Tennessee. er hint 

Daniel Boone’s work ‘was t¢ to cut out a road for 
the wagons of the Transylvania Company’s colo- 
nists to pass over. This was to be done by slash- 
ing away the briers and underbrush hedging the 
narrow Warriors’ Path that made a direct north- 
ward line from Cumberland Gap to the Ohio bank, 
opposite the mouth of the Scioto River. Just prior 
to the conference Boone and “thirty guns” had 
set forth from the Holston to prepare the road and 
to build a fort on whatever site he should select. 


*This utterance of Dragging Canoe’s is generally supposed to be the 
origin of the descriptive phrase applied to Kentucky — “the Dark and 
Bloody Ground.” See Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, vol.1,p.229. 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 135 


By April, Henderson and his first group of ten- 
ants were on the trail. In Powell’s Valley they came 
up with a party of Virginians Kentucky bound, 
led by Benjamin Logan; and the two bands joined 
together for the march. They had not gone far 
when they heard disquieting news. After leaving 
Martin’ s Station, at the gates of his new domain, 
Henderson received a letter from Boone telling of 
an attack by Indians, in which two of his men 
had been killed, but “we stood on the ground and 
eo our baggage till the day and lost noth- 

”1 'These tidings, indicating that despite treaties 
So sales, the savages. “were again ‘on the warpath, 
might well alarmHenderson’s colonists. Whilethey 
halted, some indecisive, others frankly for retreat, 
there appeared a company of men making all 
haste out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. 
Six of these Henderson persuaded to turn again 
and go in with him; but this addition hardly off- 
set the loss of those members of his party who 
thought it too perilous to proceed. Henderson’s 
own courage did not falter. He had staked his all 
on this stupendous venture and for him it was for- 
ward to wealth and glory or retreat into poverty 
and eclipse. Boone, in the heart of the danger, 


* Bogart, Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky, p. 121. 


136 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


was making the same stand. “If we give way to 
them [the Indians] now,” he wrote, “it will ever 
be the case.” 

Signs of discord other than Indian opposition 
met Henderson as he resolutely pushed on. His 
conversations with some of the fugitives from Ken- 
tucky disclosed the first indications of the storm 
that was to blow away the empire he was going in 
to found. He told them that the claims they had 
staked in Kentucky would not hold good with the 
Transylvania Company. Whereupon James Mc- 
Afee, who was leading a group of returning men, 
stated his opinion that the Transylvania Com= 
pany’s claim would not hold good with Virginia. — 
After the parley, three of McAfee’s brothers turned 
back and went with Henderson’s party, but 
whether with intent to join his colony or to make 
good their own claims is not apparent. Benjamin 
Logan continued amicably with Henderson on the 
march but did not recognize him as Lord Proprie- 
tor_of Kentucky. He left the Transylvania cara- 
van shortly after entering the territory, branched - 
off in the direction of Harrodsburg, and founded — 
St. Asaph’s Station, in the present Lincoln County, © 
independently of Henderson though the site lay 
within Henderson’s purchase. 


a 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 137 


Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Hen- 
derson and his colonists finally reached Boone’s 
Fort, which Daniel and his “thirty guns” — lack- 
ing two since the Indian encounter — had erected 
at the mouth of Otter_Creek. 

An attractive buoyancy of temperament is re- 
vealed in Henderson’s description in his journal of 
a giant elm with tall straight trunk and even foliage 
‘that shaded a space of one hundred feet. Instantly 
he chose this “divine elm” as the council chamber 
of Transylvania. Under its leafage he read the 
constitution of the new colony. It would be too 
great a stretch of fancy to call it a democratic doc- 
ument, for it was not that, except in deft phrases. 
Power was certainly declared to be vested in the 
people; but the substance of power remained in 
the hands of the Proprietors. 

-Terms for land grants were generous enough in 
the beginning, although Henderson made the fatal 
mistake of demanding quitrents—one of the 
causes of dissatisfaction which had led to the Regu-_ 
lators’ rising in North Carolina. In September he 
-bugmented this error by more than doubling the 
price of land; adding a fee of eight shillings for 
surveying, and reserving to the Proprietors one- 
half of all gold, silver, lead, and sulphur found on 


n 


SY ae ee eA 
é ey ied : 


138 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the land. No land near sulphur springs or show- 
ing evidences of metals was to be granted to set- 
tlers. Moreover, at the Company’s store the prices — 
charged for lead..were.said..to be too-high — lead 
being necessary for hunting, and hunting being the 
only means of procuring food — while the wages 
of labor, as fixed by the Company, were too low. 
These terms bore too heavily on poor men who 
were risking their lives in the colony. 

Hence newcomers passed by Boonesborough, as _ 
the Transylvania settlement-was_presently called, 
and went elsewhere. They settled on Henderson’s 
‘land but refused his terms. They joined in their 
sympathies with James Harrod, who, having es- 
tablished Harrodsburg in*thé previous year at the 
invitation of Virginia, was not in the humor to 
acknowledge Henderson’s claim or to pay him 
tribute. All were willing to combine with the 
Transylvania Company for defense, and to enforce 
law they would unite in bonds of brotherhood in 
Kentucky, even as they had been one with each 
other on the earlier frontier now left behind them. 
But they would call no man master; they had done 
with feudalism. That Henderson should not have 
foreseen this, especially after the upheaval in North 
Carolina, proves him, in spite of all his brilliant 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 139 


gifts, to have been a man out of touch with the 
spirit of the time. 
The war of the Revolution broke forth and the 


Indians descended upon—the.Kentucky_stations. 


Defense was the one problem in all minds, and 


defense required powder and lead in plenty. The 


Transylyania Company~was not able to provide 
the means of defense against-the hordes of savages 


whom Henry Hamilton, the. British Governor at 


Detroit, was sending to make war on the frontiers. 


Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers 
Clark — who, if not a practical man in his own 
interests, was a most practical soldier — saw that 


unification of interests within the territory with 


the backing of either Virginia or Congress was 
necessary. Clark personally would have preferred 
to see the settlers combine as a freemen’s state. 
It was plain that they would not combine and 
stake their lives as a unit to hold Kentucky for the 
benefit of the Transylvania Company, whose au- 
thority some of the most prominent men in the 
territory had refused to recognize. The Proprie- 
tary of Transylvania could continue to exist only 
to the danger of every life in Kentucky. 

While the Proprietors.sent a delegate to the Cen= 
tinental Congress to win official recognition 1 for 


4 


140 PIONEERS OF vy OLD SOUTHWEST 


Transylvania, cightstaae men at Ha 
drew up a petition addressed to Virginia stating their 
doubts of the legality..of-Henderson’s title and re and re- 
questing Virginia to.assert herauthorityacsordingl 
to the stipulations of her charter. That defense 


was the primary and essential motive of the Har- 


rodsburg Remonstrance seems plain, for when 
George Rogers Clark set off on foot with one com- 
panion to lay the document before the Virginian 
authorities, he also went to plead for a load of 
powder. In his account of that hazardous journey, 
as a matter of fact, he makes scant reference to 
Transylvania, except to say that the greed of the 
Proprietors would soon bring the colony to its end, 
but shows that his mind was seldom off the powder. 
It is a detail of history that the Continental Con- 
_gress. refused to seat the delegate from Transyl-— 
yania. Henderson himself went to Virginia to 
make the fight for his land before the Assembly. 
The magnetic center of Boonesborough’s life 
was the lovable and unassuming Daniel Boone. 
Soon after the building of the fort Daniel had ; 


brought in his wife and family. He-used often to 
Cig pipes 


«In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson’s title but granted him 
two hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky. 
rivers for his trouble and expense im opening up the country. 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 141 


state with a mild pride that his wife and daughters 
were the first white women to stand onthe banks 
of the Kentucky River. That pride had not been 
unmixed with anxiety; his daughter Jemima and 
‘two daughters of his friend, Richard Calloway, 
while boating on the river had been captured by 
‘Shawanoes and carried off. Boone, accompanied 
by the girls’ lovers and by John Floyd (eager to 
repay his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued 
them, tracing the way the captors had taken by 
broken twigs and scraps of dress goods which one 
of the girls had contrived to leave in their path, 
had come on the Indians unawares, killed them, 
_and recovered the three girls unhurt. 

In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official 
note of “Captain Boone of Boonesborough,”’ for 
she sent him a small supply of powder. The men 
of the little colony, which had begun so preten- 
tiously with its constitution and assembly, were 
: now obliged to put all other plans aside and to 
“eoncentrate on the question of food and defense. 
There was a dangerous scarcity of powder and lead. 
‘The nearest points at which these necessaries could 
be procured were the Watauga and Holston Riyer 
—— which were themselves none too well 
ed. Harrod and Logan, some time in 1777, 


PES Leese 


142 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


reached the Watauga fort with ties or Pe 
horses and filled their packs: from Sevier’s il 
but, as they neared home, they were detected b 
red scouts and Logan was badly wounded before 
he and Harrod were able to drive their ee 


load safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In 
the autumn of 1777, Clark, witha beleenadell 
munition, reached Maysville on the Ohio, havi 
successfully run the gauntlet between banks in 
possession of.thefoe. He had wrested the powde 
and lead from the Virginia Council by threats 
the effect that if Virginia was so willing to lose 
Kentucky — for of course “a country not worth 
defending is not worth claiming” —he and his 
fellows were quite ready to take Kentucky for 
themselves and to hold it with their swords against 
all comers, Virginia included. By even such co- 
gent reasoning had he convinced the Council — 
which had tried to hedge by expressing doubts: 
that Virginia would receive the Kentucky settlers 


“as “citizens of the State” —that it would be 


cheaper to give him the powder. 

Because so many settlers had fled and the others, 
had come closer together for their common good, 
Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were now the only 
occupied posts in Kentucky. Other settlements, 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 143 


once thriving, were abandoned; and, under the ter- 
ror, the Wild reclaimed them. In April, 1777, Boones- 
borough underwent it its first_siege. Boone, leading 


-asortie, was shot and he fell with a shattered ankle. 


‘An Indian rushed upon him and was swinging the 
tomahawk over him when Simon Kenton, giant 
Ease ee ra oS 
frontiersman and hero of many daring deeds, rushed 
aaa 
forward, shot the Indian, threw Boone aerate 
back, and fought his way desperately to safety. 
It was some months ere Boone was his nimble self 


again. But though he could not “stand up to the 


guns,” he directed all operations from his cabin. 
The next year Boone was ready for new ven- 
tures growing from the settlers’ needs. .Salt.was 
necessary to_ to preserve meat through the. summer. 
Accordingly Boone and twenty-seven men went up 
‘to the. Blue Licks in February, 1778, to replenish 
their supply..by..the simple process of boiling the 
salt water of the Licks till the saline particles ad- 
hered to the kettles. Boone was returning alone, 
with a pack-horse load of salt and game, when a 
blinding snowstorm overtook him and hid from 
view four stealthy. Shawanoes on his trail. He was 
seed and carried to a camp of 120 warriors led by 
he French... Canadian, Dequindre, and James and _ 
ae Girty, two white renegades. Among the 


\nl : bs 
144 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Indians were some of those who had captured him on 
his first exploring trip through Kentucky and who 
‘he had twice given the slip. Their hilarity was un- 
\bounded. Boone quickly learned that this band was 

on its way to surprise Booneshorough. It wasasea 

son when Indian attacks were not expected; nearl 
threescore of the men were at the salt spring and, 
to make matters worse, the walls of the new fo 


where the settlers and their families had gather 
were as yet completed on only three sides. Boones- 
borough was, in short, well-nigh defenseless. To 
turn the Indians from their purpose, Boone con- 
ceived the desperate scheme of offering to lead 
them to the salt makers’ camp with the assurance 
that he and his companions were willing to join the 
tribe. He understood Indians well enough to feel 
sure that once possessed of nearly thirty prisoners, 
the Shawanoes would not trouble further about 
Boonesborough but would hasten to make ae 
umphal entry into their own towns. That some, 
perhaps all, of the white men would assuredly die, 
he knew well; but it was the only way to save the 
women and children in Boonesborough. In spite 
of Dequindre and the Girtys, who were leading a. 
military expedition for the reduction of a fort, the 
Shawanoes fell in with the suggestion. When they 


a 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 145 


had taken their prisoners, the more bloodthirsty 
warriors in the band wanted to tomahawk them 
all on the spot. By his diplomatic discourse, how- 
ever, Boone dissuaded them, for the time being at 
least, and the whole company set off for the towns 
on the Little Miami. 

The weather became severe, very little game 
crossed their route, and for days they subsisted on 
‘slippery elm bark. The lovers of blood did not 
hold back their scalping knives and several of the 
prisoners perished; but Black.Fishy-the chief then 
of most power in Shawanoe councils, adopted 


Meas oan 


Boone as his son, and gave him the name.of Shel- 


towee, or Big Turtle. Though watched zealously 


‘to prevent escape, Big Turtle was treated with 


every consideration and honor; and, as we would 
say today, he played the game. He entered into 
the Indian life with apparent zest, took part in 
hunts and sports and the races and shooting 
matches in which the Indians delighted, but he 
was always careful not to outrun or outshoot his 
opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when 


some of the tribe escorted the remainder of the 
prisoners to the British post. There he met Goyer=~ 
nor Hamilton and, in the hope of obtaining his 
liberty, he led that dignitary to believe that he 


ro 


146 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


and the other people of Boonesborough were eage! 
to move to Detroit and take refuge under th 
British flag.* It is said that Boone always carrie 
in a wallet round his neck the King’s co 


given him in Dunmore’ = “War; and that_h 
hibited it to Hamilton to bear out his story. Hamil. 
ton sought to ransom him from the Indians, bu 
Black Fish would not surrender his new son. Th 
Governor gave Boone a pony, with saddle and 


; 
trappings, and other presents, including a 


to be used in procuring his needs and possibly his 


liberty from the Shawanoes. 
Black Fish then took his son home to Chillicothe. 
Here Boone found Delawares and. Mingos-assem- 


bling with the main body of the Shawanoe warriors. 


The war belt was being carried through t 
country. Again Boonesborough-and Harrodsburg, 
were to be the first_settlements attacked. To es- 
cape and give warning was now the one purpose 
‘ 
that-obsessed Boone. He redoubled his efforts to 
: 
*So well did Boone play his part that he aroused suspicion even 
in those who knew him best. After his return to Boonesborough 
his old friend, Calloway, formally accused him of treachery on two 
counts: that Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians an d 
had planned to betray Boonesborough to the British. Boone was 
tried and acquitted. His simple explanation of his acts satisfied the 
court-martial and made him a greater hero than ever among the 

frontier folk. 

: 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 147 


throw the Indians off their guard. He sang and 
whistled blithely about the camp at the mouth 
of the Scioto River, whither he had accompanied 
his Indian father to help in the salt boiling. In 
short, he seemed so very happy that one day_Black. 
Fish took } took his eye off him.for.a.few.moments to 
watch the p ch the passing o of a flock of turkeys. Big Tur- 
tle tle passed with the flock, leaving no.trace. To his 
lamenting 5 parent it must have seemed as though 
he had vanished into the air. Daniel crossed-the | 
: hioa an the 160 miles to Boonesborough in four 
days, during hich +t time he had only ene meal, 
from a buffalo he shot at the BlueLicks. When he 
reached the fort after an absence of nearly five 
months, he found that his wife had given him up 
for dead and had returned to the Yadkin. 
Boone now began with all speed to direct prepa- 
rations to withstand a siege. Owing to the In- 
dian’s leisurely system of councils and ceremonies 
before taking the warpath, it was not until the 
first week in September that Black Fish’s painted 
warriors, with some Frenchmen under Dequindre, 
appeared before Boonesborough. Nine days the 
siege lasted and was the longest in border history. 
Dequindre, seeing that the fort might not be 
taken, resorted to trickery. He requested Boone 


148 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


and a few of his men to come out for a parle 
saying that his orders from Hamilton were 
protect the lives of the Americans as far as pos- 
sible. Boone’s friend, Calloway, urged against 
acceptance of the apparently benign propos 


which was made, so Dequindre averred, for 
““bienfaisance et humanité.””’ But the words +e 
the words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to 
them. With eight of the garrison he went out to 
the parley. After a long talk in which good will 
was expressed on both sides, it was suggested by 
Black Fish that they all shake hands and, as there 


‘ 


were so many more Indians than white men, twol 
+ 


Indians should, of course, shake hands with one 
white man, each grasping one of his hands. The 
moment that their hands gripped, the trick was 
clear, for the Indians exerted their strength to drag 
off the white men. Desperate scuffling ensued in 
which the whites with difficulty freed themselves 
and ran for the fort. Calloway had prepared for 
emergencies. The pursuing Indians were met wi 
a deadly ; fire. After a defeated attempt to mine 
the fort the enemy withdrew. 

The successful defense of Boonesborough was. 
an achievement of national..importance,. for had 
Boonesborough fallen, Harrodsburg alone could 


oe 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 149 


not have stood. The Indians _under.the British 
would have overrun Kentucky; and George Rogers 
Clark — whose base for his Illinois operations was 
the Kentucky forts — could not have made the 
campaigns which wrested the Northwest from the 
control of Great Britain. 

Again Virginia took official note of Captain 
Boone when in 1779 the Legislature established 
Boonesborough “a town for the reception of 
traders” and appointed Boone himself one of the 
trustees to attend to the sale and Tegistration Gg 
lots... An odd office that was for Daniel, who never 
learned to attend to the registration of his own; 
he declined it. His name appears again, however, 


: 
| 


alittle later when Virginia made the whole of Ken- 
tucky one of her counties with the following officers: 
! Colonel _ David Robinson, County Lieutenant; 
‘George Rogers Clark, Anthony Bledsoe, and John 


Bowman, Majors; Daniel. Boone, James Harrod, 
jamin Logan, and John Todd, Captains. 


— 


e Boonesborough’s successful resistance caused land 
speculators as well as prospective settlers to take 
: heart of grace. Parties made their way to Boenes- 
/borough, Harrodsburg, and even to the Falls of © 
[tone where Clark's fort and blockhouses now 
eerie 


4 


Sage ee 


150 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


stood. In the summer of 1779 Clark had erected 
on the Kentucky.side..of,.the..river a large — 
which became the nucleus of the town of Louis- 
ville. Here, while he was eating his heart out 


with impatience for money and men to enable 
him to march to the attaek of Detroit, as he had 
planned, he amused himself by drawing up plans 
for a city. He laid out private sections and public 
parks and contemplated the bringing in of fami- 
lies only to inhabit his city, for, oddly enough, he 
who never married was going to make short shift 
of mere bachelors in his City Beautiful. Between 
pen scratches, no doubt, he looked out frequently 
upon the river to descry if possible a boatload o 
ammunition or the banners of the troops he had 
been promised. ' 

When neither appeared, he gave up the idea of 
Detroit and set about erecting defenses on the 
southern border, for the Choctaws.and Cherokees, 
united_under a white leader named Colbert, were 
threatening Kentucky by) way | of the Mississippi. 
He built in-1780 Fort Jefferson in what is now 
Ballard.County, and had barely completed the 
new post and garrisoned it with about thirty mer 


when it was besieged by Colbert and his savages. 
The Indians, assaulting by night, were lured into 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 151 


a position directly before a cannon which poured 

lead into a mass of them. The remainder fled in 
terror from the vicinity of the fort; but Colbert 
succeeded in rallying them and was returning to 
the attack when he suddenly encountered Clark 
with a company of men and was forced to abandon 
“his enterprise. 
Clark knew that the Ohio Indians would come 
| down on the settlements again during the summer 


and that to meet their onslaughts every man in 
Kentucky would be required. He learned that 
there was a new influx of land seekers over the 
: Wilderness Road and that speculators were doing 
a thriving business in Harrodsburg; so, leaving his 
company to protect Fort Jefferson, he took two 
men with him and started across the wilds on 
foot for Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the 
Indian bands which were moving about the coun- 
By the three stripped and painted themselves 
as warriors and donned the feathered headdress. 
“So successful was their disguise that they were 
| fired on by a party of surveyors near the outskirts 
of Harrodsburg. 
_~ The records do not state what were the sensa- 
tions of certain speculators in a land office in 
Harrodsburg when a blue-eyed savage in a war 


152 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


bonnet sprang through the doorway and, with up- 
lifted weapon, declared the office closed; but we 
get a hint of the power of Clark’s personality and 
of his genius for dominating men from the terse 
report that he “enrolled” the speculators. He was 
informed that another party of men, more nervous 
than these, was now on its way out of Kentucky. 
In haste he dispatened a dozen frontiersmen to 
cut the party off at Crab Orchard and take away 
the gun of every man who refused to turn back 
and do his bit for Kentucky. To Clark a man 
was a gun, and he meant that every gun should 
do its duty. 

The leaders and pioneers of the Dark. sind Blea sl 
Ground were’iow Warriors, all under | Clark’s Ss com- 
mand, while for tw. years longer the Red Terror 
ranged Kentucky, falling ‘With - savage force now 
here, now there. In the first battle of 1780, at the 
Blue Licks, Daniel’s broth other, Edward Boone, was 
killed and scalped. Later on in the war his second 
son, Israel, suffered a like fate. The toll of life 
among the settlers was heavy. Many of the best- 
known border leaders were slain. Food and pow- 
der_often»ran short. Corn might be ‘planted, but 
whether it would be harvested or not the planters 
never knew; and the hunter’s rifle shot, necessary 


a 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 153 


though it was, proved only too often an invita- 
tion to the lurking foe. But sometimes, through 
all the dangers of forest and trail, Daniel Boone 
slipped away silently_to Harrodsburg.to..confer 
with Clark; or Clark himself, in the Indian guise 
that suited the wild man in him not ill, made his 
way to and from the garrisons which looked to 
him for eve g. 
3 ‘Twice Clark gathered together the “guns” of 
Kentucky and, marching north into the enemy’s 
country, swept down upon the Indian _ towns of - of 
Piqua and Chillicothe and razed them. Inf 1782, 
in the second a yey *head enterprises, his cousin, 
melaBtorers, who had been taken prisoner and 
adopted by the Indians and then wore Indian 
garb, was shot down by one of Clark’s men. On 
is expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have 
accompanied Clark. 
| The ever present terror and horror of those days, 
especially of the two years preceding this expedi- 
tion, are vividly suggested by the quaint remark 
f an old woman who had lived through them, as 
.. for us by a traveler. The most beautiful 
sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said, was a 
young man dying a natural death in his bed. Dead 
oa unmarred by hatchet or scalping knife, he was 


A eae eee a 


154 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


so rare and comely a picture that the women of th 
post ‘sat up all night looking at him. . ; 


But, we ask, what golden emoluments were show 
ered by a grateful country on the men who thu 
held the land through those years of want an 
war, and saved an empire for the Union? Wha 
practical recognition was there of these brav 
and unselfish men who daily risked their lives an 
faced the stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilder 
ness ways? There is meager eloquence in the ree 
ords. Here, for instance, is a letter from Georg 
Rogers Clark to the Governor.of,Virginia, date 
May 27, 1783: 


Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to mak 
the following request to Your Excellency, which is t 
grant me a small sum of money on account; as I cai 
assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for th 
want of necessary clothing ete and don’t know an 
channel through which I could procure any except o 
the Executive. The State I believe will fall conside1 
ably in my debt. Any supplies which Your Excellene 
favors me with might be deducted out of my ine 


Clark had spent all his own substance and all 7 

he could beg, borrow — or appropriate — in t 

conquest of Illinois and the defense of Kentuck} 
5 Calendar of Virginia State Papers, volortt, p. 487. si 


THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND 155 


lis only reward-from-Virginia was a grant of land 
‘om which he realized-nothing;and-dismissal from. 
er service when she needed.him.no_ longer. 

All that Clark had asked for himself was.a.com-, 
lission in the ContinentalArmy. This was denied 
im, as it appears now, not through his own errors, 
hich had not at that time taken hold on him, but 
arough the influence of powerful enemies. It is 
1id that both Spain and England, seeing a great 
yldier without service for his sword, made him 
ffers, which he refused. As long as any acreage 
smained to him on which to raise money, he con- 
inued to pay the debts he had contracted to 
nance his expeditions, and in this course he had 
he assistance of his youngest brother, William, 
9 whom he assigned his Indiana grant. , 
| ‘Ais. health. impaired by. hardship. and exposure 
= his heart broken by his country’s indifference, 


lark sank into alcoholic _excesses,. In his sixtieth » © 


ear, just six years before his death, and when he 
as a helpless paralytic, he was granted a pension 
t four hundred.dollars. There is a ring of bitter 
ony in the words with which he accepted the 
word sent him by Virginia in his crippled old age: 


When Virginia needed a sword I gave her one.” 
Te died near Louisville on February 13, 1818. 


188 


» Va? 2 eran 
Ly) 


156 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Kentucky was admitted to the Union in | 
But even before Kentucky became a State hel 
affairs, particularly as to land, were arranged, let 
us say, on a practical business basis. Then it was 
discovered that Daniel Boone had no legal c claim 
to any foot of ground in Kentucky. Daniel owned 
nothing but the clothes he wore; and for those 
as well as for much powder, lead, food, and su 
trifles — he was heavily in debt. | 

So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debt 
in his wallet, gathered his wife and his younger son 
about him, and, shouldering his hunter’s rifle, one 
more turned towards the wilds. The country of the 
Great.Kanawha in West Virginia was still a wilder 
ness, and a hunter and trapper might, in some years 
earn enough to pay his debts. For others, now, the 
paths he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once 
more the wilderness road. 


: CHAPTER VIII 
TENNESSEE 


Inp1ANn law, tradition, and even superstition had 
shaped the conditions which the pioneers faced 
when they crossed the mountains. This savage 
inheritance had decreed that Kentucky should be 
a dark and bloody ground, fostering no life but that 
of four-footed beasts, its fertile sod never to stir 
with the green push of the corn. And so the white 
men who went into Kentuelsy to build and to plant 
went as warriors go, and for every cabin. they 
erected they battled as warriors to hold a fort. In 
the first years they planted little corn-and, reaped 
less, for it may be said that their rifles were never 
out of their hands. We have seen how stations 
were built and abandoned until but two stood. 
ous vigilance and SEES warfare were the 


the Indian’s place of ‘desolation and death into a 


land productive and a living habitation. 
157 


1) ge Ci 
158 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST | 


Herein lies the difference, slight apparently, 
significant, between the first Kentucky and 
first Tennessee’ colonies. Within the memory 
the Indians only one tribe had ever attempt 
to make their home in K Kentucky. —a ‘tribe of 

fighting Shawanoes — and they had been terrib 
chastised for their temerity. But Tennessee w: 
the home of the Cherokees, and at Chickasz 

+ Eee Sa, ; 

Bluffs (Memphis) began the southward trail 
the principal towns of the Chickasaws. By 
red man’s, fiat, then, human life might abide i 
Tennessee, though not in Kentucky, and it fol- 
lowed that in seasons of peace the frontiersmen 
might settle in Tennessee. So it was that as early 


ae from the Indians, tie Fort 
near Great Telliko, the Cherokees’ principal tow 
and that, after the treaty of am in 1761, Wadde 
and _ his rangers.of.North-Garolina.had erected 
fort on the Holston. 
Though Fort Loudon had fallen tragically d r- 
ing the war, and though Waddell’s fort had bee 
t Tennessee. The name, Ten-as-se, appears on Adair’s map as . 
of the old Cherokee towns. Apparently net e meaning nor # 


réason why the colonists called both state and river by this name : 
been handed down to us. 


: / . TENNESSEE 159 
Fi abandoned, neither was without influence in the 
| colonization of Tennessee, for some of the men who 
built these forts drifted back a year or two later and 
| set up the first cabins on the Holston. These earliest 
settlements, thin and scattered, did not survive; 

|} but in 1768 the same settlers or others of their kind 
3 tog discharged militiamen from Back Country regi- 
j| ments — once more made homes on the Holston. 

They were joined by a few families from near_ 
the present Raleigh, North Carolina, who had de- 
} spaired of seeing justice done to the tenants on the 
|) mismanaged estates of Lord Granville. About the 
‘same time there was erected the first cabin on 
‘the Watauga River, as is generally believed, by a 
man of the name of William Bean (or Been), hunter 
_and frontier soldier from Pittsylvania County, Vir- 
ginia. This man, who had hunted on the Watauga 
with Daniel Boone in 1760, chose as the site of his 
| dwelling the place of the old hunting camp near 
the mouth of Boone’s-Creek. He soon began to 
' have neighbors. 


er a sr 


t 


| Meanwhile the Regulation Movement stirred the 
Back Country_of.both.the Car olinas. In 1763, 


| the year in which William Bean built his cabin 
| on the bank of the Watauga, five hundred armed 


—_—— 


able. It is worthy of note that they included in their 
“ demands articles which are now constitutional. 


160 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Regulators in North Carolina, aroused by irregu i 
larities in the conduct of public office, gathered 
to assert their displeasure, but dispersed mine 
bly on receipt of word from Governor Tryon that he 
had ordered the prosecution of any officer found 
guilty of extortion. Edmund Fann nning, the most 
hated of Lord Granville’s agents, thouble convicted, 
escaped punishment. Enraged at this miscarriage 
of justice, the Regulators began a system of ter- 
rorization by taking possession of the court, pre- 
sided over by Richard Henderson. The judge 
himself was obliged to slip out by a back way to 
avoid personal injury. The Regulators burned his 
house and stable. They meted out mob treatment 
likewise to William Hooper, later one of the signers" 
of the Declaration of Independence. 

Two oe with at aims, had been 


tarmevent 


failure of justice in the case of Fanning hadiant given 
the corrupt element its opportunity to seize con- 
trol. In the petitions addressed to Goyernor 
Tryon by the leaders of the movement in its earlier 
stages the aims of liberty-loving thinkers are trace- 


They desired that “suffrage be given by ticket and 


| 


I 


. TENNESSEE 161 


: 
' 


| ballot”; that the mode of taxation be altered, and 


each person be taxed in proportion to the profits 
arising from his estate; that judges and clerks be 
given salaries instead of perquisites and fees. They 
likewise petitioned for repeal of the act prohibit- 
ing dissenting ministers from celebrating the rites 
of matrimony. The establishment of these re- 
forms, the petitioners of the Regulation concluded, 
would “conciliate” their minds to “every just 
measure of government, and would make the laws 
what the Constitution ever designed they should 
be, their protection and not their bane.” Herem 
clearly enough we can discern the thought and the 
phraseology of the Ulster. Presbyterians. 

But a change took place in both leaders and 
methods. During the Regulators’ career of violence 


they were under the sway of an agitator named 
Hermon Husband. This demagogue was reported 
to have been expelled from the Quaker Society for 
cause; it is on record that he was aa from the 
North Carolina Assembly because a vicious anony- 

us letter was traced to him. He deserted his 
Z.. just before the shots cracked at Alamance 
Creek and fied from the colony. .He was after- 
wards apprehended in Pennsylvania for complicity 


in the Whisky Insurrection. 
| tie 


tr 


162 PIONEERS OF THE OLD § 


Four of the leading Preshyyiclalainaa of th 
Back Country issued a letter in condemnation of 
the Regulators. One of these ministers was the 
famous Dayid Caldwell. son-im-law of the Reyer, 
end Alexander Craighead. and a man who kne 
the difference between liberty and license and who 
proved himself the bravest of patriots in the War 
of Independence. The records of the time contain 
sworn testimony against ERE 
still Avery. a signer of the Mecklenburg 
who later presided honorably over. anid in ad 
western circuit of Tennessee; and there is evide 
indicating Jacobite and French intrigue. That Gov- 
ernor Tryon recognized a hidden hand at work seems 
clearly revealed in his proclamation addressed to 
those “whose understandings have been run away 
with and whose passions have been led in captivity 
by some evil designing men who, actuated by cow- 
ardice and a sense of that Publick Justice which is 
due to their Crimes, have obscured themselves 
from Publick view.” What the Assembly thought 
of the Regulators was expressed in 1770 in a drastic 
bill which so shocked the authorities in England 
that instructions were sent forbidding any Gover- 
nor to approve such a bill in future, declaring it 
“a disgrace to the British Statute Books.” 


eaeahammees 168 


=. 16, 1771, some Ps. 7 aisle Regula- 
tors were precipitated by Husband into ihe Baitle 
: of Alamance, which took place in ra aE setiled 
largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, 
' many of whom Husband had lured to swell his 
mob. Opposed to him were eleven hundred of 
Governor Tryon’s-ireops, officered. by. such. patri-_ 
ots as Griffith Rutherford, Hugh Waddell, and 
4 is Nash. During an hour’s engagemeni about 
twenty Regulators were killed, while the Gover- 
| nor’s troops had nine killed and sixty-one wounded. 
| pene he: leaders were hanged. = took the 
| which Tryon a 
Tt has been said about the Regulators that ae 
were not cast down by their defeat at Alamance 
_ but “hke the mammoth, they shook the bolt from 
| their brow and crossed the mountains,” but such 
| flowery phrases do not seem to have been inspired 
by facts. Nor do the records show that “fifteen 
. hundred Regulators” arrived at Watauga in 1771, 
as has also been stated. Nor are the names of the 
_ leaders of the Regulation to be found in the list of 
signatures affixed to the one “state paper” of Wa, 
tauga which was preserved and written into his- 
_ torie annals. Nor yet do those names appear on 
the roster of the Watauga and Holston men who, 


164 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


in 1774, fought with Shelby under Andrew Lew; 
in the Battle of Point. Pleasant. Tete © = 
the Bryans, the Robertsons, the Seviers, the Shel- 
bys,,the men who opened up the West and eae 
the destiny of its inhabitants, were genuine 
men, with a sense of law and order ricci | 
from liberty. “They would followa Washinsoasbel 
not a Hermon Husband.. 
James Hunter, whose signature leads onall Regu- 
lation manifestoes just prior to the Battle of Ala- 
mance, was a sycophant of Husband, to whom he 
addressed fulsome letters; and in the real batile for 
democracy — the War of Independence — he was 
a Tory. The Colonial Records show that those 
who, “like the mammoth,” shook from them the 
ethical restraints which make man superior to the 
giant beast, and who later bolted into the moun- 
tains, contributed chiefly the lawlessness that har- © 
assed the new settlements. They were the banditti 
and, in 1776, the Tories of the western hills; they 
pillaged the homes of the men who were fighting © 
for the democratic ideal. 
It was not tl the Regulati 
turned ‘westward t the m: makers of the Old eee 
but_ the free and enterprising spirit of th 


TENNESSEE 165 


It was emphatically an age of doe doers; and if men 
who felt the constructive Leerona in them might not 
lay hold on conditions where they were and.re- 
shape them, then they must go forward seeking 
that environment which would give their genius 
its opportunity. 

Ofsuch adventurous spirits was James Robertson, 
a Virginian born of Ulster Scot parentage, anda resi- 
dent of (the present) Wake County, North Caro- 
lina, since his boyhood. Robertson was twenty- 
eight years old when, in 1770, he rode over the hills 
to Watauga. We can imagine him as he was 
then, for the portrait taken much later in life shows 
the type of face that does not change. It is a 
high type combining the best qualities of his race. 
Intelligence, strength of purpose, fortitude, and 
moral power are there; they impress us at the first 
glance. At twenty-eight he must have been a 
serious young man, little given to laughter; in- 
deed, spontaneity is perhaps the only good trait 
we miss in studying his face. He was a thinker who 
had not yet found his purpose — a thinker in leash, 
for at this time James Robertson could neither ; 
read nor v write. 


) At Watauga, Robertson lived for a while in the 
e of a man named Honeycut. He chose land 


ied 


ae! eT POO eee ot , 
s é | 


166 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


for himself and, in accordance with the custom ¢ 
the time, sealed his right to it by planting corn 
He remained to harvest his first crop and then set 
off to gather his family and some of his friends to: 
gether and escort them to the new country. Bu 
on the way he missed the trail and wandered fot 
a fortnight in the mountains. The heavy rains 
ruined his powder so that he could not hunt; fol 
food he had only berries and nuts. At one place 
where steep bluffs opposed him, he was obliged te 
abandon his horse and scale the mountain side of 
foot. He was in extremity when he chanced upoi 
two huntsmen who gave him food and set him ot 
the trail. If this experience proves his lack of 
hunter’s instinct and the woodsman’s resourceful 
ness which Boone possessed, it proves also his specia 
qualities of perseverance and endurance which wer 
toreach their zenith in his successful Istruggle tocolo 
nize.and hold western. Tennessee. “He returned LC 
Watauga in the following spring (1771) with hi 
family and a small group of colonists. Robert 
son’s wife was an educated woman and under he 
instruction he now began to study. . 

Next year a young Virginian from the Sheng; 
doah Valley rode on down Holston Valley on ahu ot 
ing and exploring trip and loitered at Watauga 


ia 


Here he found not only a new settlement but an in- 


TENNESSEE 167 


dependent government in the making; and forth- 
with he determined to have a part in both. This 
young Virginian had already shown the inclina- 
tion of a political colonist, for in the Shenandoah 


Valley he had, at the age of nineteen, laid out the 
town of New Market (which exists to this day) 
| and had directed its municipal affairs and invited 


and iostered its clergy. This young Virginian — 
born on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772 twenty- 
Seven years of age — was John Sevier, that John 
Sevier whose monument now towers from its site. 
| in Knoxville to testify of both the wild and the great 
deeds of old Tennessee’s beloved knight. Like Rob- 
: ertson, Sevier hastened home andremoyed hiswhole 
family, including his wife and children, his parents 
and his brothers and sisters, to this new haven of 
freedom at Watauga. 
| The friendship formed between Robertson and 
Sevier in these first years of their work together 
was never broken, yet two more opposite types 
could hardly have been brought together. Robert- 
son was a man of humble origin, unlettered, not a 
dour | Scot but a solemn one. Sevier was cayalier as. 
_seniealieaatetl 
' well as frontiersman. On his father’s side he was 
of the patrician family of Xavier in France. His 


168 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


progenitors, having become Huguenots, had t: 
refuge in England, where the name Xavier 
fimally changed to Sevier. John Sevier’s mothe 
was an Englishwoman. Some years before his birt 
his parents had emigrated to the Shenandoah Val 
ley. Thus it happened that John Sewer, wi 
mingled good English blood with the blue blood of 
old France, was bere ee 
frontier hunter_and soldiers. He stood about f 
feet nine from his moccasins to his crown.of li 
brown hair.. He was well-proportioned_ 2 
Scaccful of body as he walla vif 

His chin was firm, his nose of a Roman cast, his 
mouth well-shaped, its slightly full lips slanting in 
asmile thai would not berepressed. Underthehigh 
finely modeled brow, small keen dark blue eye 
sparkled with health, with i intelligence, ax 
the man’s joy in life. 

John Sevier indeed cannot be listed as a 
he was individual. There is no other c ctel 
like him in border annals. Fe-nataiecaail 
prince in his leadership of men; he had their he 
age. Yet he knew how to be comrade and bre 
to the lowliest. He won and held the confidence 


and friendship of the serious-minded.Raberison 
less than the idolatry of the wildest spirits on th 


TENNESSEE 169 


frontier throughout the forty-three years of the 
spectacular career which began for him on the day 
he brought his tribe to Watauga. In his time he 
wore the governor’s purple; and a portrait painted 
of him shows how well this descendant of the noble 
Xaviers could fit himself to the dignity and formal 
habiliments of state. Yet in the fringed deerskin of 
frontier garb, he was fleeter on the warpath than the 
Indians who fled before him; and he could outride 
and outshoot — and, it is said, outswear — the best 


and the worst of the men who followed him. Per- 
haps the lurking smile on John Sevier’s face was 
a flicker of mirth that there should be found any 
man, red or white, with temerity enough to try 
conclusions with him. None ever did, successfully. 
_ The historians of Tennessee state that the Wa- 
taugans formed their government in 1772 and that 
— was one of its LVS commissioners. yee as 
possible that the Watauga Nee eitenes « was ae 
formed until then. Unhappily the written con- 
stitution of the little commonwealth was not 
preserved; but it is known that, following the. Ul. 
sterman’s ideal, manhood suffrage and_religious 
Peeerennane 
independence were two of its provisions. The 
commissioners enlisted a militia and they recorded 


CMa ae ge 


170 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


deeds for land, issued marriage licenses, and triec 
offenders against the law. They believed them- 
selves to be within the boundaries of Virginia and 
therefore adopted the laws of that State for their 
guidance. They had numerous offenders to deal 
with, for men fleeing from debt or from the con: 
sequence of crime sought the new settlements 
just across the mountains as a safe and adjacent 
harbor. The attempt of these men to pursue the 
lawlessness in Watauga was one reason why th 
Wataugans organized a government. 


was discovered to be south of S., 
hence on Indian lands. This was in weve with 
the King’s Proclamation, and Alexander Cameron, 
British agent to the Cherokees,.accordingly.ordered 
the encroaching settlers to depart. The Indians, 
however, desired them to remain. But since it was 
illegal to purchase Indian lands, Robertson nego: 
tiated a lease for ten years. In 1775, when He n- 
derson made his purchase from the Cherokees, al 
Sycamore Shoals,on the Watauga, - Robertson, and 
Sevier, who were present at the sale with othet 
Watauga commissioners, followed Henderson’s ex 
ample and bought outright the lands they desired 


TENNESSEE 171 


_toinclude in Watauga’s domain. In 1776 they pe- 
_ titioned North Carolina for “annexation.” As they 
“were already within North Carolina’s bounds, it 


_ was recognition rather than annexation which they 
sought. This petition, whichis the only Wataugan 
_ document to survive, is undated but marked as re- 


ceived in August, 1776. It is in Sevier’s handwrit- 


| ing and its style suggests that it was composed by 


him, for in its manner of expression it has much in 


- common with many later papers from his pen. That 
_ Wataugans were a law-loving community and had 


formed their government for the purpose of mak- 
ing law respected is reiterated throughout the docu- 
ment. As showing the quality of these first western 
statemakers, two paragraphs are quoted: 


Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehen- 
sive that for want of proper legislature we might becomea 
shelter for such as endeavored to defraud their creditors; 
considering also the necessity of recording deeds, wills, 
and doing other public business; we, by consent of the 
people, formed a court for the purposes above men- 
tioned, taking, by desire of our constituents, the Virginia 
laws for our guide, so near as the situation of affairs 
would permit. This was intended for ourselves, and 
was done by consent of every individual. 


The petition goes on to state that, among their 
measures for upholding law, the Wataugans had 


172 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


enlisted “‘a company of fine riflemen” and put the 7 | 
under command of ‘ Coe Ja ames Robertson.” 


RRs 


We . . . thought proper to station them on our fron- 
tiers in defense of the common cause, at the expense and 
risque of our own private fortunes, till farther public 
orders, which we flatter ourselves will give no offense. 

. We pray your mature and deliberate consideration 
in our behalf, that you may annex us to your Province 
(whether as county, district, or other division) in such 
manner as may enable us to share in the glorious cause 
of Liberty : enforce our laws under authority and in every 
respect become the best members of society; and for our- 
selves and our constituents we hope we may venture to” 
assure you that we shall adhere strictly to your determi- 
nations, and that nothing will be lacking or anything 
neglected that may add weight (in the civil or military 
establishments) to the glorious cause in-which we are 
now struggling, or contribute to the welfare of our own 
or ages yet to come. 


One hundred and thirteen names are signed to. 
the document. In the following year (1777) Nort j 
Carolina erected her overhill territory, into. Wash-— 
ington County. The Govermen appointed justices 
of the peace and militia officers who in the follow-— 
ing year organized the new county and its courts. — 
And so Watauga’s independent government, be- 
gun in the spirit of true liberty, came as s lawfully | 
toits end. 


: 
: 


| 


TENNESSEE 173 


- But for nearly three years before their political 


_ status was thus determined, the Wataugans were 


sharing “in the glorious cause of Liberty”’ by de- 
fending their settlements against Indian attacks. 
While the majority of the young Cherokee warriors 


_ were among their enemies, their chief battles were 


fought with those from the Chickamaugan towns 
on the Tennessee River, under the leadership of 


Dragging Canoe. The Chickamaugans embraced 
_ the more vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with 
_ a mixture of Creeks and bad whites, who, driven 


from every law-abiding community, had cast in 
their lot with this tribe. The exact number of 


_ white thieves and murderers who had found harbor 
_ in the Indian towns during a score or more of years 
is not known; but the letters of the Indian agents, 
_ preserved in the records, would indicate that there 
were a good many of them. They were fit allies 
for Dragging Canoe; their hatred of those from 


whom their own degeneracy had separated them 
was not less than his. 

In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia 
Committee as follows: 


Dear GENTLEMEN: Isaac Thomas, William Falling, 


Jaret Williams and one more have this moment come 
’ in by making their escape from the Indians and say six 


174 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


hundred Indians and whites were to start for this fort 
and intend to drive the country up to New River before 
they return. 


Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage war- 
fare which kept the borderers engaged for years. 
It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that 
Isaac Thomas received a timely warning from 
Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee prophetess who 
often showed her good will towards the whites; 
and that the Indians were roused to battle by Alex- 


ca 
ander Cameron and John Stuart, the British agents 


or superintendents among the overhill tribes. 


There was a letter bearing Cameron’s name stating 
that fifteen hundred savages from the Cherokee 
and Creek nations were to join with British troops 
landed at Pensacola in an expedition against the 
southern frontier colonies. This letter was brought — 
to Watauga at dead of night by a masked man who” 
slipped it through a window and rode away. Ap- | 
parently John Sevier did not believe the military : 
information contained in the mysterious missive, 
for he communicated nothing of it to the Virginia 
Committee. In recent years the facts have come 
to light. This mysterious letter and others of a 


similar tenor bearing forged signatures are cited 


in a report by the British Agent, John. Stuart, to 


TENNESSEE 175 


his Government. It appears that such inflamma- 
‘tory missives had been industriously scattered 
through the back settlements of both Carolinas. 
There are also letters from Stuart to Lord Dart- 
mouth, dated a year earlier, urging that something 


be done immediately to counteract rumors set 
afloat that the British were endeavoring to insti- 
gate both the Indians and the negroes to attack 
ns eediienaneeianet Saab M ti Foe 
Eow i is, of course, an ees fact that Pen 
in the War of f Independence, e even as both together is 
chad used them against. the F rench and the Span- 
| a and their allied Indians. It was inevitable 
| that the Indians should participate in any severe 
conflict between the whites. They were a numer- 
ous and a warlike people and, from their point of 
view, they had more at stake than the alien whites 
who were contesting for control of the red man’s 
continent. Both British and Americans have been 
blamed for “half-hearted attempts to keep the In- 
dians neutral.”’ The truth is that each side strove 
to enlist the Indians — to be used, if needed later, 
as warriors. Massacre was no part of this policy, 
though it may have been countenanced by indi- 
vidual officers in both camps. But it is obvious 


176 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


that, once the Indians took the warpath, they we 
to be restrained by no power and, no matter und T 
whose nominal command, they would carry olf 
wartare by their own methods. * 4 

Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the 
attacks on the Watauga and Holston settlements 


> ey gener en pe 


1 “There is little doubt that either side, British or Americans, s 
ready to enlist the Indians. Already before Boston the American 
had had the help of the Stockbridge tribe. Washington found the 
service committed to the practise when he arrived at Cambridge early 
in July. Dunmore had taken the initiative in securing such allies, ai 
least in purpose; but the insurgent Virginians had had of late more 
direct contact with the tribes and were now striving to secure the: 
but with little success.” The Westward Movement, by Justin Winsor, 
p. 87. F 

General Ethan Allen of Vermont, as his letters show, sent emissaries 
into Canada in an endeavor to enlist the French Canadians and the 
Canadian Indians against the British in Canada. See American Ar- 
chives, Fourth Series, vol. 11, p. 714. The British General Gage wrote 
to Lord Dartmouth from Boston, June 12, 1775: “We need not be 
tender of calling on the Savages as the rebels have shown us the 
example, by bringing as many Indians down against us as they could 
collect.” American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. 11, p. 967. 

In a letter to Lord Germain, dated August 23, 1776, John Stuart 
wrote: “Although Mr. Cameron was in constant danger of assassina- 
tion and the Indians were threatened with invasion should they dare 
to protect him, yet he still found means to prevent their falling on the 
settlement.”” See North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. x, pp. 608 
and 763. Proof that the British agents had succeeded in keeping the 
Cherokee neutral till the summer of 1776 is found in the instructions, 
dated the 7th of July, to Major Winston from President Rutledge of 
South Carolina, regarding the Cherokees, that they must be forced to 
give up the British agents and “instead of remaining in a State of 
Neutrality with respect to British Forces they must take part with us 
against them.” See North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. x, p. 658. 


him il 
: \ TENNESSEE 177 


were not instigated by British.agents--It was not 
Nancy Ward but HenryS Stuart, John Stuart’s depu- 
ty, who sent Isaac Thomas to warn the settlers. 

In their efforts to keep the friendship of the red 
men, the British and the Americans were providing 
them with powder and lead. The Indians had run 
short of ammunition and, since hunting was their 
only means of livelihood, they must shoot or starve. 
South Carolina sent the Cherokees a large supply 
of powder and lead which was captured en route 
by Tories. “About the same time Henry Stuart 
set out from Pensacola with another consignment 
from the British. His report to Lord Germain of 
his arrival in the Chickamaugan towns and of what 
took place there just prior to the raids on the Ten- 
nessee settlements is one of the most illuminating 
as well as one of the most dramatic papers in the 
collected records of that time.’ 

| Stuart's first act was secretly.to send.out Thomas, 
the trader, to warn the settlers of their peril, for a 
small war party of braves was even then conclud- 
ing the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason 
for ‘this Indian alarm and projected excursion was 
the fact that the settlers had built one fort at least 


on the Indian lands. Stuart finally persuaded | the 


t North Carolina Colonial Rede vol. Ke pp. 7163-785. 


12 


ict 
eae a 


178 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Indians to remain at peace until he could write te 
the settlers stating the grievances and asking for 
negotiations. The letters were to be carried by 
Thomas on his return. 


But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with 
the letters than there arrived a deputation of we 
riors from the Northern tribes — from “the Con. 
federate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, Nantu: 
cas, Shawanoes and Delawares.”’ — fourteen mer 
in all, who entered the council hall of the Old 
Beloved Town of Chota with their faces painted 
black and the war belt carried before them. They 
said that they had been seventy days on their jour- 
ney. Everywhere along their way they had seen 
houses and forts springing up like weeds across 
the green sod of their hunting lands. Where once 
were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had 
watched thousands of men at arms preparing for 
war. So many now were the white warriors an¢ 
their women and children that the red men had 
been obliged to travel a great way on the other side 
of the Ohio and to make a detour of nearly three 
hundred miles to avoid being seen. Even on this 
outlying route they had crossed the fresh tracks of 
a great body of people with horses and cattle going 
still further towards the setting sun. But ther 


TENNESSEE 178 » 


se. Hesaid that some American people had made 
war on one of their towns and had aaa Seca 
c Ftheir Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, 
mprisoned him, and put him to a cruel death; 
this crime demanded a great vengeance and they 
" ould not cease until they had taken it. One after 
a nother the fourteen delegates rose and made their 
t. and presented their wampum strings to 


ing Canoe. The last to speak was_a chief 


fai ners, the French,”’ who had been so long dead, 
e “alive again,”’ that they had supplied them 
jlentifully with arms and ammunition and had 
) ised to assist them in driving out the Amer- 
jeans and in reclaiming their country. Now all the 
N orthern tribes were joimed in one for this great 
= and they themselves were on their way to 
allthe Southern tribes and had resolved that, if any 
triberefused to join, they would fall upon and extir- 
i sticatietotaes overcome the whites. 
At the conclusion of his oration the Shawanoe 
——— the war belt — nine feet of six-inch-wide 


sey Ph ae ‘et 


180 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
purple wampum spattered with vermilion —t 
Dragging Canoe, who held it extended between hi 
two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently ros 
a headman whose wife had been a member of Si 
William Johnson’s household. He laid his hand o1 
the belt and sang the war song. One by one, ther 
chiefs and warriors rose, laid hold of the great bel 
and chanted the war song. Only the older men 
made wise by many defeats, sat still in their places 
mute and dejected. “After that day every yo 
fellow’s face in the overhills towns appeare 
blackened and nothing was now talked of but war. 

Stuart reports that “all the white men” in 
tribe also laid hands on the belt. Draggi 
then demanded that Cameron and Stuart_co 
forward and take hold of. the war belt— “which 
we refused.”’ Despite the offense their 


gave—and it would seem a dangerous wii 
give such offense — Cameron delivered a “ 
talk”’ for peace, warning the Cherokees of cial 
musi surely be the end of the rashness they con- 
templated. Stuart informed the chief that if 
Indians persisted in attacking the settlements with- 
out waiting for answers to his letters, he would 
not remain with them any longer or bring thez 
any more ammunition. He went to his house z 


TENNESSEE 181 


nade ready to leave on the following day. Early 
he next morning Dragging C appeared at his 
door and told him Gente ictinns were now very 
ingry about the letters he had written, which could 
only have put the settlers on their guard; and that 
Wa any white man attempted to leave the nation 
“they had determined to follow him but not to 
” Dragging Canoe had painted his 
e black to carry this message. Thomas now now 
| eturned with an_answerfrom.."‘the West Fin- 
castle men,”’ which was so unsatisfactory to the 


bring him back. 


tribe that war ceremonies were immediately begun. 
art and Cameron could no longer influence the 

s. “All that could now be done was to give 
them strict charge not to pass the Boundary Line, 
mot to injure any of the King’s faithful subjects, not 
to Kill any women and children”; and to threaten 
to “stop all ammunition” if they did not obey 
these orders. 


_ The major part of the Watauga militia went out 
ito meet the Indians and defeated : ‘a large advance. 
Hoxce at at_Long Long Island FI Flats on the Holston. The 
Watauga fort, where many y of th the settlers had taken 
refuge, contained forty fighting men under Robert- 


be 
son and Sevier, As Indians usually retreated and 


te ee eee ore 


182 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST | 


~ waited for a while after a defeat, those within t 
fort took it for granted that no immediate atta 
was to be expected; and the women went out : 
daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. Sud 
denly the war whoop shrilled from the edge 

the clearing. Red warriors leaped from the gree 
skirting of the forest. The women ran for the fa 


Quickly the heavy gates swung to and the droppe 
bar secured them. Only then did the watchme 
discover that one woman had been shut out. 
Was a young woman nearing her twenties and, 
legend has reported her truly, “Bonnie Kate Sher 
rill’ wasa beauty. Through a porthole Sevier sa’ 
her running towards the shut gates, dodging 2 ne 
darting, her brown hair blowing from the wind oi 
her race for life— and offering far too rich a pri 
to the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevi 
coolly shot the foremost of her pursuers, the 
sprang upon the wall, caught up Bonnie Kate 
and tossed her inside to safety. And legend say 
further that when, after Sevier’s brief widower 
hood, she became his wife, four years later, Bonnie 
Kate was.wont to say that she would be willin; 
to run another such race any day to have anothe 
such introduction! . 

There were no casualties within the fort anc 


thirt; vietories.” His method was io takea 
small company of the hardiesit and swiftest 
semen— men who could keep them seat and 
eadurance. and horses thai could keep ther feet 
ad ther speed. om any sicep of the mouniams no 
ex how tangled and rough the going mighi be 
swoop down upon war camp. or iown. and go 
pugh it with rifle and haichet and fire. then dash 
rd at the same pace before ihe enemy had 
begun to consider whether io follow him or noi. 
im all his “thirty-five baiiles™ ii is said he lost not 
more than fifty men 
ae RE 
sof almost coatinuoas warfare. the treaty being 
jud. ed om their side by ihe old chicis who had 


184 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


So fast was population growing, owing to the open- 
ing of a wagon road into Burke County, North Caro- 
lina, that Washington County. was divided. T 
Sevier became Colonel of Washington and Isaa¢ 
Shelby Colonel. of the newly erected i 
County. J onesborough, the oldest town in Ten 

nessee, was laid out as the county seat of Washing- 
ton; and in the same year (1778) Sevier moved to 
the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after the 
Indian name of this dashing sparkling stream, mean- 
ing rapid or precipitous. Thus the nickname given 
John Sevier by his devotees had a dual application. 
He was well called Nolichucky Jack. 


 , 
When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson’s im 


chew renee me: 


mense purchase but_allowed- him-a- arget 
the Cumberland, she by.no vmeaiilaispiia noel a 


intrepid pioneer. Henderson’s tenure of Kentucky 
had been brief, but not. unprofitable i in experience. 
He had learned that colonies must be treated with 
less commercial pressure and with more regard 
to individual liberty, if they were to be held loyal 
either to a King beyond the water or to an un 

crowned leader nearer at hand. He had been mak | 
ing his plans for colonization of that portion of 


the Transylvania purchase which lay within the 


TENNESSEE 185 


bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland 
and choosing his men to lay the foundations of his 
, projected settlement in what was then a wholly un- 
inhabited country; and he had decided on generous 
terms, such as ten dollars a thousand acres for land, 
‘the certificate of purchase to entitle the holder 
to further proceedings in the land office without 
extra fees. 

| * To head an enterprise of such danger and hard- 
‘ship Henderson required a man of more than 
‘mere courage; a man of resource, of stability, of 
proven powers, one whom other men would follow 
and obey with confidence. So it was that James 
Robertson was chosen to lead the first white settlers 
‘into middle Tennessee. He set out in February, 
‘1779, accompanied by his brother, Mark Robert- 
‘aaite for Pelenent aad to Say Maainwtite 
laother small party led by Gaspar Mansker had 
aurived As the boundary line between Virginia 
and North Carclina had not been run to this point, 
Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay 
within Virginia and was in the disposal of General 
Clark. To protect the settlers, therefore, he jour- 
neyed into the Illinois country to purchase cabin 
rights from Clark, but there he was evidently 


186 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


convinced that the site on the Cumberland woul 
be found to lie within North Carolina. He 7ebarael 
to Watauga to lead a party of settlers into the new 
territory, towards which they set out in October. 
After crossing the mountain chain through_Cum- 
berland Gap;-the party followed Boone’s road — 
the Warriors’ Path — for some distance and then 
made their own trail southwestward through the 
wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, where 
they built cabins to house them against one of the 
coldest winters ever experienced in that country. 
,,So were laid the first foundations of the presen 
ree at first named Nashborough by 
Robertson.2. On the way, Robertson had fallen in 
with a party of men and families bound for Ken- 
tucky and had persuaded them to accompany his 
little band to the Cumberland. Robertson’s 0 
wife and children, as well as the families of hi 


party, had been left to follow in the second expe 
dition, which was to be made by water under th 
command of Captain John Donelson. 

The little fleet of boats containing the settler 
their families, and all their household goods, wai 
to start from Fort Patrick Henry, near Long Islan | 


tIn honor of General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, who w: 
mortally wounded at Germantown, 1777. 


TENNESSEE 187 


in the Holston River, to float down into the Ten- 
nessee and along the 652.miles of that widely wan- 
dering stream-to-the.Ohio,-and then to proceed up 

the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland and up 

the Cumberland until Robertson’s station should 
appear — a journey, as it turned out, of some nine.” 
hundred miles through unknown country and on 
waters at any rate for the greater part never before 
navigated by white men. 

Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permis 
sion, in the good boat Adventure is the title of the 
log book in which Captain Donelson entered the 
events of the four months’ journey. Only a few 
pages endured to be put into print: but those few 
tell a tale of hazard and courage that seems com- 
plete. Could a lengthier narrative, even if en- 
riched with literary art and fancy, bring before us 
more vividly than do the simple entries of Donel- 
son’s log the spirit of the men and the women who 
won the West? If so little personal detail is re- 
corded of the pioneer men of that day that we must 
deduce what they were from what they did, what 
do we know of their unfailing comrades, the pio- 
neer women? Only that they were there and that 
they shared in every test of courage and endur- 
ance, save the march of troops and the hunt. 


188 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Donelson’ s Journal therefore has a special value, 
because in its terse account of Mrs me ennings~¢ 


Mrs... Peyton it depicts unfaneuiasilieies aa y 


of pioneer. womanhood.* 


December 22nd, 1779. Took our departure from the 
fort and fell down the river to the mouth of Reedy 
Creek where we were stopped by the fall of water and 
most excessive hard frost. 


Perhaps part of the Journal was lost, or perhaps 
the ‘‘excessive hard frost” of that severe winter, 
when it is said even droves of wild game perished 
prevented the boats from going on, for the next 
entry is dated the 27th of February. On this 
date the Adventure and two other boats grounded 
and lay on the shoals all that afternoon and the 
succeeding night “‘in much distress. ”’ 


March 2nd. Rain about half the day.... M 
Henry’s boat being driven on the point of an island b: 
the force of the current was sunk, the whole cargo muck 
damaged and the crew’s lives much endangered, which 
occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go te 
their assistance. 
Monday 6th. Got under way before sunrise; the morn- 
ing proving very foggy, many of the fleet were much 
bogged — about 10 o’clock lay by for them; wher 


1 This Journal is printed in Ramsey’s Annals of Tennessee. 


- 


TENNESSEE 189 


collected, proceeded down. Camped on the north shore, 
‘where Captain Hutching’s negro man died, being much 
frosted in his feet and legs, of which he died. 

Tuesday, 7th. Got under way very early; the day 
/proving very windy, a S. S. W., and the river being 
wide occasioned a high sea, insomuch that some of the 
smaller crafts were in danger; therefore came to at the 
uppermost Chiccamauga town, which was then evacu- 
ated, where we lay by that afternoon and camped that 
night. The wife of Ephraim. Peyton was here delivered 
of a child. Mr. Peyton has gone through by land with 
Captain Robertson. 

Wednesday 8th . . . proceed down to an Indian vil- 
lage which was inhabited . . . they insisted on us to come 
ashore, called us brothers, and showed other signs of 
friendship. . . . And here we must regret the unfortu- 
nate death of young Mr. Payne, on board Captain Blake- 
-more’s boat, who was mortally wounded by reason of 
the boat running too near the northern shore opposite 

the town, where some of the enemy lay concealed; and 

the more tragical misfortune of poor Stuart, his family 
and friends, to the number of twenty-eight persons. 

This man had embarked with us for the Western coun- 

try, but his family being diseased with the small pox, 

it was agreed upon between him and the company that 
he should keep at some distance in the rear, for fear of 
the infection spreading, and he was warned each night 
when the encampment should take place by the sound 

of ahorn. . . . the Indians having now collected to a 

considerable number, observing his helpless situation 

singled off from the rest of the fleet, intercepted him and 
killed and took prisoners the whole crew . . . ; their 
cries were distinctly heard. ... 


190 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


After describing a running fight with Indians st 
tioned on the bluffs on both shores where the rive 
narrowed to half its width and boiled through a can 
yon, the entry for the day concludes: “‘Jennings’ 
boat is missing.” 


Friday 10th. This morning about 4 o’clock we were 
surprised by the cries of “help poor Jennings” at some 
distance in the rear. He had discovered us by our fire: 
and came up in the most wretched condition. He states 
that as soon as the Indians discovered his situation [hi 
boat had run on a rock] they turned their whole atten- 
tion to him and kept up a most galling fire at his boat. 
He ordered his wife, a son nearly grown, a young man 
who accompanies them and his negro man and woman, 
to throw all his goods into the river to lighten their boa’ 
for the purpose of getting her off; himself returning their 
fire as well as he could, being a good soldier and an ex- 
cellent marksman. But before they had accomplished 
their object, his son, the young man and the negro, 
jumped out of the boat and left. . . . Mrs. Jennings, 
however, and the negro woman, succeeded in unloading 
the boat, but chiefly by the exertions of Mrs. Jennings 
who got out of the boat and shoved her off, but was near 
falling a victim to her own intrepidity on account of the 
boat starting so suddenly as soon as loosened from the 
rock. Upon examination he appears to have made a 
wonderful escape for his boat is pierced in numberless: 
places with bullets. It is to be remarked that Mrs. 
Peyton, who was the night before delivered of an infant, 
which was unfortunately killed upon the hurry and con- 
fusion consequent upon such a disaster, assisted them, 


TENNESSEE 191 


| being frequently exposed to wet and cold.... Their 
clothes were very much cut with bullets, especially 
| Mrs. Jennings’s. 


‘Of the three men who deserted, while the women 
stood by under fire, the negro was drowned and 
Jennings’s son andthe other young man were 
captured by the Chickamaugans. “The latter was 
\burned at the stake. Young Jennings was tohavé 
|shared the same fate; but a trader in the village, 
Jearning that the boy was known to John Sevier, 
‘ransomed him by a large payment of goods, as a 


~ 


| eame in sight of the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the 
| northern shore at the appearance of the shoals, in order 
_ to search for the signs Captain James Robertson was to 
| make for us at that place . . . that it was practicable 
_for us to go across by land . . . we can find none — 
from which we conclude that it would not be prudent 
to make the attempt and are determined, knowing our- 
selves in such imminent danger, to pursue our journey 

down the river. . . . When we approached them [the 
: Shoals] they had a dreadful appearance. . .. The water 
being high made a terrible roaring, which could be heard 
at some distance, among the driftwood heaped fright- 
fully upon the points of the islands, the current running 
in every possible direction. Here we did not know how 
soon we should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles 


to him. AANA AMA GO 
4 —— > 
Sunday 12th... . After running until about 10 o’clock 


| return for an act of kindness Sevier had once done _ 


|} 


bottom and appeared constantly in danger of striking 
They warped as much as in a rough sea. But by the 
hand of Providence we are now preserved from this dan 
ger also. I know not the length of this wonderful shoal 
it had been represented to me to be twenty-five or thirty 
miles. If so, we must have descended very rapidly, as 
indeed we did, for we passed it in about three hours. 


On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the 
mouth of the Tennessee and the voyagers landed 
on the bank of the Ohio. 


Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is 
very high and the current rapid, our boats not con- 
structed for the purpose of stemming a rapid stream 
our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn dow 
with hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance 
we have to go or what time it will take us to our place of 
destination. The scene is rendered still more melan 
choly as several boats will not attempt to ascend the 
rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi 
to Natchez; others are bound for the Illinois — among 
the rest my son-in-law and daughter. We now part, 
perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined 
pursue my course, happen what will. | 

Tuesday 21st. Set out and on this day labored very 
hard and got but little way. . . . Passed the two fol- 
lowing days as the former, suffering much from hunger 
and fatigue. 

Friday 24th. About three o’clock came to the mouth of 
a river which I thought was the Cumberland. Some of 


TENNESSEE 193 


_ the company declared it could not be — it was so much 
smaller than was expected. . . . We determined how- 
ever to make the trial, pushed up some distance and 
encamped for the night. 

Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the 
river grows wider; . . . we are now convinced it is 
the Cumberland... . 

Sunday 26th . . . procured some buffalo meat; though 
poor it was palatable. 

Friday 31st . . . met with Colonel Richard Hender- 


| son, who is running the line between Virginia and North 


| Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He 


gave us every information we wished, and further in- 
formed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn 
in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the 


| use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now with- 


q 


out bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to 


| preserve life. . . . 


Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our jour- 
ney’s end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleas- 
ure of finding Captain Robertson and his company. It 
is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore 
to him and others their families and friends, who were 
entrusted to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, 
despaired of ever meeting again... . 


Past the camps of the Chickamaugans — who 


_ were retreating farther and farther down the twist- 


ing flood, seeking a last standing ground in the 
giant caves by the Tennessee — these white voy- 
agers had steered their pirogues. Near Robertson’s 
. . (a 
station, where they landed after having traversed 


X3 


close the larger part.of.wes 26, .S a 
crumbling trading house 1 ake ee a 
Frenchman who.had, one time, sailed in from the 
Ohio. to. establish an outpost | of his nation there. 
At a little distance were the ruins of a rude fort 
cast up by the Cherokees in the days when the re 
doubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the 
pleasant shores of the western waters. Under the 
towering forest growth lay vast burial mounds 
and the sunken foundations of walled towns, tell- 
ing of a departed race which had once flashed its 
rude paddles and had its dream of permanence 
along the courses of these great waterways. Now 
another tribe had come to dream that dream 
anew. Already its primitive keels had traced 
the opening lines of its history on the face of the 
immemorial rivers. 


mast 


_Azovct the time when James Robertson went from ~ 
‘Watauga to fling out the frontier line three-hun— 
dred miles farther westward, the British took Sa- 
LT 
tyvannah. In 178Q they took CharlestonandA 
Georgia. Augusta was the point where 
the old trading path forked north and west, 
and it was the key to the Back Country and the 


: 
: 


‘overhill domain. In Georgia and the Back Coun- 
try of South Carolina there were many Tories 
‘Teady to rally to the King’s standard whenever a 


| = 


‘King’s officer should carry it through their midst. 


A large number of these Tories were Scotch, chiefly 
from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, 
‘Scotch bleod predominated among the racial 
streams in the Back Couniry from Georgia to Pena- 
sylyania. Now, to insure a triumphant march 
northward for Cornwallis and his royal troops, 


these sons of Scotland must be gathered together, 
195 


the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tend- 
encies converted, and they must be drilled and 
turned to account. This task, if it were to be ac- 
complished successfully, must be entrusted to 2 
officer with positive qualifications,-one who would 
command respect, whose personal address would at: 
tract men and disarm opposition, and especially one 
who could go as aScot among hisownclan. Corn- 
wallis found his man in. Major. Patrick.Ferguson. 

Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord it. 
four of Aberdeen, and thirty-six years of age. _He 
was of short stature for a Highlander — about fiv five 
feet eight — lean and dark, with straight black. hai ; 
He hada serious unhandsome countenance which, 
at casual glance, might not arrest attention; but 
when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of 
the intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his 
_ eyes and the convincing sincerity of his manner 
He was admired and respected by his brother offi- 
cers and by the commanders under whom he hae 


served, and he was loved by his men. 

He had seen his first service in the Seven Years 
War, having joined the British army in Flanders 
at the age of fifteen; and he had early distinguishec¢ 
himself for courage and coolness. In 1768, as ¢ 
captain of infantry, he quelled an insurrection of 


‘ok KING’S MOUNTAIN 197 


the natives on the island of St. Vincent in the 
West Indies. Later, at Woolwich. he took up the 


scientific study of his profession of arms. He not 
only became a crack shot, but he invented a new 
type of rifle which he could load at the breach — 


“without ramrod and so quickly as to fire seven 


times in aminute. Generals and statesmen attend- 
ed his exhibitions of shooting; and even the King 


rode over at the head of his guards to watch | Fer- 


guson rapidly loading and firing. 
In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the 


} reputation of being the best shot in the army; and 
it was soon said that, in his quickness at loading 
and firing, he excelled the most expert American 


frontiersman. Eyewitnesses have left their testi- 
mony that, seeing a bird alight on a bough or rail, 
he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss 
it in the air, catch and aim it as it fell, and shoot 
the bird’s head off. He was given command of a 
corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of the 
Brandywine in_ 1777, he rendered services which 
won acclaim from the whole army. For the honor 
of that day’s service to his King, Ferguson paid 
what from him, with his passion for the rifle, 
must have been the dearest price that could have 
been demanded. His right arm was shattered, and 


198 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


for the remaining three years of his short life it 
hung useless at his side. Yet he took up swordplay | 
and attained a remarkable degree of skill as a left-_ 
handed swordsman. ] 

Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the 
man? For he has been pictured as a woli and a | 
fiend and a coward by early chroniclers, who evi- | 
dently felt that they were adding to the virtue of ; 
those who fought in defense of liberty by Tepre-— 
senting all their foes as personally odious. We 
can read his quality of manhood in a few lines of 
the letter he sent to his kinsman, the noted Dr. 
Adam Ferguson, about an incident that occurred 4 
at Chads Ford. As he was lying with his men ~ 
in the woods, in front of Knyphausen’s army, so 
he relates, he saw two American officers ride out. 
He describes their dress minutely. One was in~ 
hussar uniform. The other was in a dark green 
and blue uniform with a high cocked hat and was” 
mounted on a bay horse: 


I ordered three good shots to steal near to and fire at 
them; but the idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. 
The hussar in retiring made a circuit, but the other 
passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which I ad- 
vanced from the wood towards him. Upon my calling 
he stopped; but after looking at me he proceeded. I 
again drew his attention and made signs to him to stop, 


| 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 199 


levelling my piece at him; but he slowly cantered away. 


As I was within that distance, at which, in the quickest 
firing, I could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about 
him before he was out of my reach, I had only to deter- 


mine. But it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an 


unofiending individual who was acquitting himself very 


coolly of his duty — so I let him alone. The day after, 


I had been telling this story to some wounded officers, 


who lay in the same room with me, when one of the sur- 


geons who had been dressing the wounded rebel officers 
came in and told us that they had been informing him 
that General Washington was all the morning with the 


light troops, and only attended by a French officer in 
_hussar dress, he himself dressed and mounted in every 
_ point as above described. I am not sorry that I did not 


know at the time who tt was. 


Ferguson had his code towards the foe’s women 


also. On one occasion when he was assisting in 


ene 


an action carried out by Hessians_and_ Dragoons, 
he learned that some American women had been 
shamefully maltreated. He went in a white fury 


t Doubt that the officer in question was Washington was expressed 
by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper stated that Major De Lancey, 
his father-in-law, was binding Ferguson’s arm at the time when the 
two officers were seen and Ferguson recalled the order to fire, and that 
De Lancey said he believed the officer was Count Pulaski. But, as 


_ Ferguson, according to his own account, “leveled his piece” at the 


officer, his arm evidently was not wounded until later in theday. The 
probability is that Ferguson’s version, written in a private letter to 
his relative, is correct as to the facts, whatever may be conjectured as 
to the identity of the officer. See Draper’s King’s Mountain and its 
Heroes, pp. 52-54. 


200 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST _ 


to the colonel in command, and demanded that. 1e 
men who had so disgraced their uniforms instant y 
“be put to death. Be 

In rallying the loyalists of the Back Coun Cy 
of Georgia and the Carolinas, Ferguson was very 
successful. He was presently in command of a 
thousand or more men, including small detach- 
ments of loyalists from New York and New J Yew Jersey, 
under American-born officers. such as De. De-Peyste , 
and Allaire. There were good honest men among 
the loyalists and there were also rough and vicious 
men out for spoils — which was true as well of the 
Whigs or Patriots from the same counties. Among 
the rough element were Tory banditti from the 
overmountain region. It is to be gathered from 
Ferguson’s records that he did not think any too 
highly of some of his new recruits, but he set 0 
work with all energy to make them useful. - 

The American.Patriots hastily prepared to op- 
pose him. Colonel Charles McDowell of..Burke 
County, North ¢ Carolina, with a ‘eel force of mili- 
tia was just “south of the line at a point on the 
Broad River when he heard that Ferguson was 
sweeping. onnorthward. In haste he sent a call for 
help across the mountains. to Sevier and Shelby. 
Sevier had his hands full at_Watauga, but he 


? ores 
bd 


ENG. MOUNTAIN 201 


ee 


; Eiclby, with a Saran rel from iene County 
-erossed the mountains to McDowell’s..assistance. 
These ““overmountain men”’ or “‘backwater men,” 
as they were called east of the hills, were trained 
in Sevier’s method of Indian warfare — the secret 
approach through the dark, the swift dash, and 
the swifter flight. “‘Fight strong and run away 
: fast” was the Indian motto, as their women had 
‘often been heard to call it after the red men as they 
ran yelling to fall on the whites. The frontiers- 
men had adapted the motto to fit their case, as 
they had also made their own the Indian tactics 
of ambuscade and surprise attacks at dawn. To 
sleep, or ride if needs must, by night, and to fight 
by day and make off, was to them a reasonable 
soldier’s life. 
But Ferguson was a night marauder. The terror 
of his name, which grew among the Whigs of the 
Back Country until the wildest legends about his 
ferocity were current, was due chiefly to a_habit« 
he had of of pouncing on his foes i in the middle of the 
night and pulling them out of bed to give fight or 
die. It was generally both fight and die, for these 
Bark adventures of his were particularly success- 
ful. Ferguson knew no neutrals or conscientious 


ce Ol Oar) Pst, 
“ M 


202 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


objectors; any man who would not carry arms for 
_the King was a traitor, and his life and goo ‘goods were 
forfeit. A report. of his-reads: “The attack being 
made at night, no quarter could be given.” Hence 
his wolfish fame. Werewolf” would have been a 
fit name for him for, though he was a wolf at nigh 
in the daylight he was a man and, as we have seen, 
a chivalrous one. 

In the guerrilla fighting that went on for a brief 
time between the overmountain. men..and..various 
detachments of Ferguson’s forces, sometimes one 
side, sometimes the other, won the heat. But the 
field remained open. Neither side could claim the 
mastery. In a minor engagement fought at M s- 
grove’s..Mill on the Enoree,.Shelby’s command 
came off victor an was about to pursue the enemy 
towards. Ni Ninety® foi when a messenger from Me 
Dowell galloped madly into camp with word of 
General Gates’s crushing defeat at Camden# This 
was a warning for Shelby’s guerrillas to flee as 
birds to their mountains, or Ferguson would cut 
them off from the north and wedge them in be- 
tween his own force and the victorious Cornwallis. 
McDowell’s men, also on the run for safety, joined 
them. For forty ight nee without food or rest 
they rode a race with Ferguson, who kept hard on 


| 


| KING’S MOUNTAIN 203 
their trail until they disappeared into the mystery 
| of the winding mountain paths they alone knew. 
Ferguson reached the gap where they had 


‘swerved into the towering hills only half an hour 


after their horses’ hoofs had pounded across it. 


Here he turned back. His troops were exhausted 
from the all-night ride and, in any case, there 


were not enough of them to enable him to cross the 
mountains and give the Watauga men battle on 
their own ground with a fair promise of victory. 
So keeping east of the hills but still close to them, 
Ferguson turned into Burke County, North-Garo- 
lina. He sat him down in Gilbert Town (present 
Lincolnton, Lincoln County) at the foot of the Blue_ 
Ridge and indited a letter_to the “Back Water 
Men,” telling them that if they did not lay down 
‘their arms and return to their rightful allegiance, 


he would come over their hills and raze their settle- 
: ments and hang their leaders. He paroled a kins- 
: man of Shelby’s, whom he had taken prisoner in the 
: chase, and sent him home with the letter. Then 
he set about his usual business of gathering up 

Tories and making soldiers of them, and of hunting 

down rebels. 

One of the “rebels” was a certain Captain Létle. 
When Ferguson drew up at Lytle’s door, Lytle had 


) 


204 PIONEERS OF THE OLD 


already made his escape; but Mrs. awemaa ties eT 
She was a very handsome woman and she hi: 
dressed herself in her best to receive Ferguson, v 
was reported a gallant as well as sa wolf. After | 
few spirited passages between the lady i in the doc 
way and the officer on the white horse before if 
the latter advised Mrs. Lytle to use her influen 
to bring her husband back to his duty. She be 
came grave then and answered that her husbane 
would never turn traitor to his country. Fergu 
frowned at the word “traitor,” but presently h 
said: “Madam, I admire you as the handsomes 
woman I have seen in North Carolina. I eve 
half way admire your zeal in a bad cause. FE 
take my word for it, the rebellion has had its daj 
and is now virtually put down. Give my rega 
to Captain Lytle and tell him tocomein. He 
not be asked to compromise his honor. His y 
pledge not again to take up arms a the F 
is all thai will be asked of him.” 

This was another phase of the character of thi 
one-armed Highlander whose final challenge to the 
back water men was now being considered in ever 
log cabin beyond the hills. A man who would noi 
shoot an enemy in the back, who was ready toy u 


— 


* Draper, King's Mountain and is Heroes, pp. 151-53. 


g KING’S MOUNTAIN 205 


th same faith in another soldier's honor which 
ne knew was due to his own, yet in battle a wolf- 
ish fighter who leaped through the dark to give 


When elby on the Holston received Ferguson’s 
pungent letter, he flung himself on his horse and 


‘rode posthaste to Watauga to consult with Sevier. 
He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming 
‘with merrymakers. Nolichucky Jack was giving 
-am immense barbecue and a horse race. Without 
letting the festival crowd have an inkling of the 
Serious nature df Shelby’s errand, the two men 
dre drew apart to confer. It is said-to have-been-Se- 
Vier’s idea that they should muster the forces of 
the western country and go in search of Ferguson 
| ere 1 the latter should be able to get sufficient re- 
inforcements to cross the mountains. Sevier,like 
[ Ferguson, always preferred-to seek his foe, knowing 
_ well the advantage of the offensive. Messengers 
| were s sent_to Colonel William Campbell of the 
| | Virginia settlements on the Clinch, asking his aid. 
Campbell ai first refused, thinking it better to 
fortify the positions they held and let Ferguson 


‘ 


206 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


come and put the mountains between himself and” 
‘Cornwallis. On receipt of a second message, how 
_ ever, he concurred. The call to arms was heard up 
and down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poure¢ 


into Watauga. The overhill men were augmented 
by McDowell’ s troops from Burke County, who had 
dashed over the mountains a few weeks before i n 
their escape from Ferguson. 

At daybreak on the 26th of September they 
mustered at the Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga 
over a thousand strong. It was a different picture 
they made from that other great gathering at the 
same spot when Henderson had made his purchase 
in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, and 
Sevier_and Robertson-had-beught, for the Watau- 
gans this strip.of-Tennessee. There were no In- 
dians in this picture. Dragging ‘Canoe, who had 
uttered his bloody prophecy, had by these very 
men been driven far south into the caves of the 
Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy still 
hung over them, and in this day with a heavier 
menace. Not with money, now, were they to seal 
their purchase of the free land by the western 
waters. There had been no women in that other 
picture, only the white men who were going for- 
ward to open the way and the red men who were 


\ 
retreating. But in-this picture there were women 
—wives and children, mothers, sisters, and sweet- 
hearts. All the women of the settlement were 
there at this daybreak muster to cheer on their 


‘way the men who were going out to battle that 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 207 


‘they might keep the way of liberty open not for 
‘men only but for women and children also. And 
the battle to which the men were now going forth 


must be fought against Back Country men of their 


own stripe under a leader who, in other circum- 


stances, might well have been one of themselves — 


a primitive spirit of hardy mountain stock, who, 
having once taken his stand, would not barter and 
would not retreat. 

“With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” 
eried their pastor, the Reverend Samuel Doak, 
with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung 
into their saddles. And it is said that all the 
women took up his words and cried again and 
again, “With the sword of the Lord and of our 
Gideons!” To the shouts of their women, as bugles 
on the wind of dawn, the buckskin-shirted army 
dashed out upon the mountain trail. 

The warriors’ equipment included rifles and am- 
munition, tomahawks, knives, shot pouches, a knap- 
sack, and a blanket for each man. Their uniforms 


208 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


were leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of 
gayly fringed deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey s sp 1 
by their women. Their hunting shirts were bound 
in at the waist by bright-colored linsey sashes tied 
behindinabow. They wore moccasins s forfeotgear, 
and on their heads high fur or ‘deerskin caps 
trimmed with colored bands of raveled clot 

pitas 
Around their necks hung their powder-horns orn; orna- 
mented with their own rude carvings. re 

On the first day they drove along with them 
a number of beeves but, finding that the cattle 
impeded the march, they left them behind on the 
mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were 
wild game and the small supply each man carried 
of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink, 
they had the hill streams. 

They passed upward between Roan and Yellow 
mountains-to-the top of the range. Here, on the 
bald summit, where the loose snow lay to their 
ankles, they halted for drill and rifle practice. 
When Sevier called up his men, he discovered that 
two were missing. He suspected at once that they 
had slipped away to carry warning to Fergus a 
for Watauga was known to be infested with oul : 
Two problems now confronted the mountaineers. 
(1) They must increase the speed of their march, so 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 209 


that Ferguson should not haye time to get rein- 
forcements from Cornwallis; ‘and they must make 
that extra speed by another trail than il than they had 
intended tz taking so g so that they themselves cc could not 
be intercepted before they had picked up the Back 
Country militia under Colonels Cleveland, Hamp- 
bright, Chronicle, and Williams, who were moving 
to join them. We are not told who took the lead 
when they left the known trail, but we may sup- 
pose it was Sevier and-his Wataugans, for the mak- 
ing of new warpaths and wild riding were two of 
the things which distinguished Nolichucky Jack’s 
leadership. Down the steep side of the mountain, 
finding their way as they plunged, went the over- 
hill men. They crossed the Blue Ridge at _Gil- 
lespie’s Gap and pushed on to Quaker Meadows, 
where Colonel Cleveland with 350 men swung into 
their column. Along their route, the Back Country 
Patriots with their rifles came out from the little 
hamlets and the farms and joined them. 

| They now had an army of perhaps fifteen hun- 
dred men but no commanding officer. Thus far, 
a the march, the four colonels had conferred 


gether and agreed as to procedure; or, in real- 
ity, the influence of Sevier and Shelby, who had 
lanned the enterprise and who seem always to 


14 


= Os ee 
tig ite. 
J 


210 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


have acted in unison, had swayed the others. 
would be, however, manifestly improper to go int 
battle without a real general. Something m : 
be done. McDowell volunteered to carry a lette 
explaining ahisnies need to General Gates, who hae 
escaped with some of his staff into North Caroling 
and was not far off. It then occurred to Sevi 
and Shelby, evidently for the first time, that Gates 
on receiving sucha—request, might well ask why 
the Governor of North Carolina, as the military 
head of the State, had not provided a com 
mander. The truth is that Sevier and Shelb 
had been so busy drumming up the militia am 


planning their campaign that they had foune 
no time to consult the Governor. Moreover, the 
means whereby the expedition had been finance 
might not have appealed to the chief executive 
After finding it impossible to raise sufficient fund 
on his personal credit, Sevier had appropriated) 
the entry money in the government land office t 
the business in hand — with the good will of th 
entry taker, who was a patriotic man, although, ai 
he had pointed out, he could not, officially, hand 
over the money. Things being as they were, n 
doubt Nolichucky Jack felt that an interview wit 
the Governor had better be deferred until after” 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 211 


the capture of Ferguson. Hence the tenor of this 


communication to General Gates: 


_As we have at this time called out our militia without 
any orders from the Executive of our different States 
and with the view of expelling the Enemy out of this 
part of the Country, we think such a body of men 


worthy of your attention and would request you to send 


a General Officer immediately to take the command. 
J All our Troops being Militia and but little ac- 
quainted with discipline, we could wish him to be a 
Gentleman of address, and able to keep up a proper 
discipline without disgusting the soldvery. 


For some unknown reason — unless it might be 
the wording of this letter! — no officer was sent 
in reply. Shelby then suggested that, since all the 
| @ificers but Campbell were North Carolinians and, 
therefore, no one of them could be promoted with- 
out arousing the jealousy of the others, Campbell, 


as the only Virginian, was the appropriate choice. 


| The sweet reasonableness of selecting a commander 
‘from such a motive appealed to all, and Campbell 
became a general in fact if not in name! Shelby’s 
principal aim, however, had been to get rid of Mc- 
‘Dawell, who, as their senior, would naturally ex- 
pect to command and whom he considered “too 
far advanced in life and too inactive” for such 
anenterprise. At this time McDowell must have 


es 


<oring ‘on the loyalists to jom-him. If the overmout 


My 
yen 


an Ferguson’s proclamation shows what the wol 


212 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST > 


been nearly thirty-nine; and Shelby, who was jus 
thirty, wisely refused to risk the campaign under 
general who was in his dotage! 

News of the frontiersmen’s approach, with thei 
augmented force, now numbering between sixteel 
and eighteen hundred, had reached Ferguson bj 
the two Tories who had deserted from Sevier 
troops. Ferguson there 
out of Gilbert Town and was marchin hwar 
to_get_in touch with Cornwallis. His force wa 
much reduced, as some of his men were in pursui 
of Elijah Clarke towards Augusta and a number ¢ 
his other Tories were on furlough. As he passe 
through the Back Country he posted a notice call 


_ tain men felt that they were out on a wolf hunt 


thought of his hunters. 


To the Inhabitants of North Carolina. 


GENTLEMEN: Unless you wish to be eat up by ani 
nundation of barbarians, who have begun by murderin 
an unarmed son before the aged father, and afterwar 
lopped off his arms, and who by their shocking cruelti 
and irregularities give the best proof of their cowardice 
and want of discipline: I say if you wish to be pinione 
robbed and murdered, and see your wives and dager te 
in four days, abused by the dregs of mankind —in 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 213 


short if you wish to deserve to live and bear the name of 
men, grasp your arms in a moment and run to camp. 
The Back Water men have crossed the mountains: 
McDowell |, Hampton, Shelby, and Cleveland are at their 
head, so that you know what you have to depend upon. 
you choose to be degraded forever and ever by a 
set of mongrels, say so at once, and let your women 
turn their backs upon you, and look out for real men to 
protect them. 


Pat. Fercuson, Major 71st Regiment.* 
5 Ferguson’ s force has been estimated at about 
| leven ‘hundred men, but it is likely that this esti- 
ate does not take the absentees into considera- 
tion. In the diary of Lieutenant Allaire, one of his 
officers, the number is given as only eight hundred. 
Because of the state of his army, chroniclers have 
found Ferguson’s movements, after leaving Gil- 
feet Town, difficult to explain. It has been pointed 
out that = could easily have escaped, aes he had 
‘quarters, w was only sixty miles distant. We have 
seen something of Ferguson’s quality, however, and 
we may simply take it that he did not want to 
escape. He had been planning to cross the high 
hills — to_him, the Highlander, no barrier but a 
challenge — to fight these men. Now that they 


* Draper, King’s Mountain and its Heroes, p. 204. 


VS Ole ere, & 


214 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


had taken the initiative he would not show them 
his back. He craved the battle. So he sent out ii 
runners to the main-army~-and-rode_on_along th 


eastern base of the racuntains, seeks std 


site e to go into” camp and wait for-Corn 
_On the 6th of October he rine the sant 
“of the King’s Mountain-ridge; in South es ina 


about half a_mile south of the northern boundary. 
Here a rocky, semi-isolated spur juts out from the 
ridge, its summit — a table-land about six hundred 
yards long and one hundred and twenty wide at 
its northern end —rising not more than sixty feet 
above the surrounding count y- On he summit 
Ferguson pitched_his-eamp. . 

The hill was a natural fortress, its sides forested, 
its bald top protected by rocks and bowlders. All 
the approaches led through denseforest. Anenemy 
force, passing through the immediate, wooded terri ; 
tory, might easily fail to discover a small army 
nesting sixty feet above the shrouding leafage. 
Word was evidently brought to Ferguson here, 
telling him the now augmented number of his foe, 
for he dispatched another emissary to Cornwallis” 
with a letter stating the number of his own troops 
and urging full and immediate assistance. ‘ 


Meanwhile-the frontiersmen had halted at the. 


A) 
J a 


r 


: 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 215 


‘ 
Cowpens. There they feasted royally off roasted 
cattle and corn belonging to the loyalist who owned 
the Cowpens. It is said that they mowed his fifty 
acres of corn in an hour. And here one of their 
“spies, in the assumed réle of _a Tory, learned Fer- 
guson’s plans, his approximate force, his route, and 
his system of communication with Cornwallis. 
The officers now held council and determined to 
‘take a detachment of the hardiest and fleetest horse- 
men and sweep down on the enemy before aid 


_ according to Shelby’s report, 910 mounted men set 


off at full speed, leaving the main body of horse 


_ and foot to follow after at their best pace. 


Rain poured down on them all that night as 


they rode. At daybreak they crossed the Broad— 


at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the drenching 
eee 

rain alltheforenoon. They kept their firearms and 
powder dry by wrapping them in their knapsacks, 
blankets, and hunting shirts. The downpour had 
so churned up the soil that many of the horses 
mired, but they were pulled out and whipped for- 
ward again. The wild horsemen made no halt for 


food or rest. Within two miles of King’s Mountain~ : » 
_ they captured Ferguson’s messenger with the letter 


that told of his desperate situation. They asked 


h | 0 

f. a eee et 
(UHOUA~” ! 
\ pe : 


a fl 
ole 
J Not 


= 


this man how they should know Ferguson. He 
told them that Ferguson was in full uniform bul 
wore a checkered shirt or dust cloak over it. This 


was not the only messenger of Ferguson’s who faile¢ 
to carry through. The men he had sent out pre- 
viously had been followed and, to escape capture 
or death, they had been obliged to lie in hiding 
so that they did not reach Cornwallis until the day 
of the battle. 

At three o’clock on the afternoon of the_7th 0 
October, the overmountain men were in the forest 
at the base of the hill. The rain had ceased and the 
sun was shining. They dismounted and tethered 
their steaming horses. Orders were given that every 
man was to “‘throw the priming out of his pan, pick 
his touchhole, prime anew, examine bullets and se 
that everything was in readiness forbaittle.” The 
plan of battle agreed on was to surround the hill, 
hold the enemy on the top and, themselves screened 
by the trees, keep pouring in their fire. There was 
a good chance that most of the answering fire would 
go over their heads. . 

As Shelby’s-men crossed a_gap in the woods, the 
outposts on the hill discovered their presence and 
sounded the alarm. Ferguson sprang to horse, 
blowing his silver whistle to call his men to attac kc, 


| KING’S MOUNTAIN Q17 


a riflemen poured fire into Shelby’s contingent, 


jut meanwhile the frontiersmen on the other sides_ 


————E 


were creeping up, and presently a_circle of fire 


ourst upon the hill. With fixed bayonets, some of 
Ferguson’s men charged down the face of the slope, 
igainst the advancing foe, only to be shot in the 


dack as they charged. Still time and time again 
they charged; the overhill men reeled and retreated; 


out always their comrades took toll with their 
rifles; Ferguson’s men, preparing for a mounted 
charge, were shot even as they swung to their 
saddles. Ferguson, with his customary indiffer- 
ence to danger, rode up and down in front of his 
ine blowing his whistle to encourage his men. 
“Huzza, brave boys! The day is our own!” Thus 
he was heard to shout above the triumphant war 
whoops of the circling foe, surging higher and 
higher about the hill. 

But there were others in his band who knew the 
fight was lost. The overmountain men saw two 
white handkerchiefs, affixed to bayonets, raised 
above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash 
by and slash them down with his sword. Twe 
horses were shot under Ferguson in the latter part 
of the action; but he mounted a third and rode 
again into the thick of the fray. 


CT eee ee, Pt ae 
*h, pith pA pas ’ q 
218 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Suddenly the cry spread among the attacla 
troops that the British officer, Tarleton, had com 


to Ferguson’s rescue; and the mountaineers begai 


to give way. But it was only the g galloping horse 
of their own comrades; Tarleton had not come 
Nolichucky Jack spurred out in front of his me 


and rode along the line. Fired by his courage the} 
sounded the war whoop again and renewed thi 
attack with fury. 

“These are the same yelling devils that wer 
at Musgrove’s Mill,” said Captain De 7 
to Ferguson. 

Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans 
had reached thesummit. The firing circle pressed i 
Thebuckskin-shirted warriors leaped the rocky bar 
riers, swinging their tomahawks and long knives 
Again the white handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguso 
saw that the morale of his troops was shattered. 

*“Surrender,’’ De Peyster, his second in com 
mand, begged of him. 

“Surrender to those damned banditti?_ Never ‘ 

Ferguson turned his horse’s head \ downhill anc 
charged into the Wataugans, hacking right and lef 
with his sword till it was broken at the hilt. . 
dozen rifles were leveled at him. An iron muzzle 
pushed at his breast, but the powder flashed in thi 


KING’S MOUNTAIN 219 


an. He swerved and struck at the rifleman with 
is broken hilt. But the other guns aimed at him 
spoke; and Ferguson’s body jerked from the saddle 

ierced by eight bullets. Men seized the bridle 
lof the frenzied horse, plunging on with his dead 


master dragging from the stirrup. 

The battle had lasted less than an hour. After 
Ferguson fell, De_Peyster advanced with a white 
flag and surrendered his sword to Campbell. Other 
white flags waved along the hilltop. But the kill- 
ing did not yet cease. It is said that many of the 


mountaineers did not know the significance of the 
white flag. Sevier’s sixteen-year-old son, having 
heard that his father had fallen, kept on furiously 
loading and firing until presently he saw Sevier ride 
in among the troops and command them to stop 
shooting men who had surrendered and thrown 
down their arms. 

’ The victors made a bonfire of the enemy’s bag- 
gage wagons and supplies. Then they killed some 
of his beeves and cooked them; they had had nei- 
ther food nor sleep for eighteen hours. They dug 
shallow trenches for the dead and scattered the 
loose earth over them. Ferguson’s body, stripped 
of its uniform and boots and wrapped in a beef 
hide, was thrown into one of these ditches by 


‘+> ) ee 


220 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST © 


the men detailed to the burial work, while the offi- 
cers divided his personal effects among themselves, 


) 


The triumphant army turned homeward as the 
dusk descended. The uninjured prisoners and th 
wounded who were able to walk were marched of 
carrying their empty firearms. The badly wounded 
were left lying where they had fallen. 

At Bickerstaff’s Old Fields in Rutherford County 
the frontiersmen halted; and here they selected 


thisty of their prisoners to be hanged. They swung 
them aloft, by torchlight, three at a time, unti 
nine had gone to their last account. Then Seyie 
interpesed; and, with Shelby’s added authority 
saved the other twenty-one. Among those whe 
thus weighted the gallows tree were some Gi 
the Tory brigands from Watauga; but not all the 
victims were of this character. Some of the troops 
would have wreaked vengeance on the two Torie 
from Sevier’s command who had betrayed theit 
army plans to Ferguson; but Sevier claimed them 
as under his jurisdiction and refused consent 
Nolichucky Jack dealt humanely by his foes. Te 
the. coarse and brutish Cleveland, now astride o 
Ferguson’s horse and wearing his sash, and to th 
three hundred who followed him, may no doubt b 2 
laid the worst excesses of the battle’s afterpiece. © 


ie 


| . KING’S MOUNTAIN 221 
| WVictors and vanquished drove on in the dark, 


to the great flank of hills. From where King’s 
Mountain, strewn with dead and dying, reared its 
black shape like some rudely hewn tomb of a pri- 
mordial age when titans strove together, perhaps 
... ears of the marching men came faintly 
through the night’s stillness the how] of a wolf and 
the answering chorus of the pack. For the wolves 
e down to King’s Mountain from all the sur- 
ounding hills, following the scent of blood, and 
nade | their lair where the Werewolf had fallen. 
The scene of the mountaineers’ victory, which 
marked the turn of the tide for the Revolution, 
Beane for years the chief resort of wolf hunters 
from both the Carolinas. 
_ The importance of the overmountain men’s vic- 
tory lay in what it achieved for the cause of Inde- 


pendence.” King’s Mountain was the prelude to 


Cornwallis’s defeat. It heartened the Southern 
Patriots, until then cast down by Gates’s disaster. 


To the British the death of Ferguson was_an_irre- 


parable loss because of .its.depressing effect on the 
Back Country Tories. King’s Mountain, indeed, 


eG, Seven days after the battle 
seneral Nathanael_Greene succeeded to the com- 


Be 1 haa tid 


222 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


had led to defeat. Greene’s genius met the rising 
tide of the Patriots’ courage and hope and took it a 
the flood. His strategy, in dividing his army an 
thereby compelling the division of Cornwallis 
force, led to Daniel Morgan’s victory at the Co 7 


pens, in the Back Cou South Car ina, 01 
January 17, 1781 — another frontiersme tri- 


umph. Though the British won the next engage 
ment between Greene and Cornwallis—the batt! 
of Guilford Court House in the North Carolina Back 
Country, on the 15th of March— Greenemadeth on 
pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton callec 
it “the pledge of ultimate defeat”’; and, three day 
later, Cornwallis was retreating towards Wilming 
y Gi ton. In a sense, then, King’s Mountain was the 
pivot of the war’s revolving stage, which swung 


ree om 


British from their_succession of victories tows 


the surrender at Yorktown. 


Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted tk 
prisoners to Virginia. Sevier, with his men, rode 
home to Watauga. When the prisoners had beer 
delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the Hol 
ston men also turned homeward through the hill: 
Their route lay down through the Clinch and Hol 
ston valleys to the settlement at the base of th 


| fe Mae J 


prdinatains Sevier and his Wataugans had gone by 


| Gillespie’s Gap, over the pathway that hung like a 
} narrow ribbon about the breast of Roan Moun- 
tain, lifting its crest in dignified isolation sixty- 
three hundred feet above the levels. The‘ Unakas” 
was the name the Cherokees had given to those 
white men who first invaded their hills; and the 
Unakas is the name that white men at last gave 
te the mountains. 

| Great companies of men were to come over the 
‘mountain paths on their way to the Mississippi 
‘country and beyond; and with them, as we know, 
jwere to go many of these mountain men, to pass 
‘away with their customs in the transformations 
| Sia come with progress. But there were others 
‘who clung to these hills. They were of several 
|stocks — English, Scotch, Highlanders, Ulster- 
‘men, who mingled by marriage and sometimes took 
| their mates from among the handsome maids of 
hei Cherokees. They spread from the Unakas of 


| Tennessee into the Cumberlan i e 


\tucky; and they have remained to this day what 


they were then, a primitive folk of strong and 
fiery men and brave women living as their fore- 
fathers of Watauga and Holston lived. In the log 
cabins in those mountains today are heard the 


Lonl ® Sd Nah crn ae 


224 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


same ballads, sung still to the dulcimer, that enter 
tained the earliest settlers. The women still tur 


the old-fashioned spinning wheels. The code oi 
the men is still the code learned perhaps from the 
Gaels — the code of the oath and the feud and 
the open door to the stranger. Or were these, thé 
ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted primiti 
tribes, transmitted from the Indian strain and a 
sociation? Their young people marry at boy and 
girl ages, as the pioneers did, and their wedding 
festivities are the same as those which made re 
joicing at the first marriage in Watauga. Theil 
common speech today contains words that have 
been obsolete in England for a hundred years. 

Thrice have the mountain men come down again 
from their fastnesses to war for America since the 
day of King’s Mountain and thrice they have ae 
quitted themselves so that their deeds are noted it 
history. A souvenir of their part in the War o 
1812 at the Battle of the Thames is kept in one o 
the favorite names for mountain girls — “Lak 
Erie.”’ In the Civil War many volunteers fron 
the free, non-slaveholding mountain regions 0 
Kentucky and Tennessee joined the Union Army 
and it is said that they exceeded all others in stat 
ure and physica] development. And in our ow: 


. -KING’S MOUNTAIN 225 


_ day their sons again came down from the moun- 
tains to carry the torch of Liberty overseas, and 
_to show the white stars in their flag side by side 
with the ancient cross in the flag of England 
| against which their forefathers fought. 

. 5 


CHAPTER X 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 


AFTER King’s Mountain, Sevier reached home just 
in time to fend off a Cherokee attack.on Watauga 


ron press — 


Again warning had come to the settlements that 


the Indians were about to descend upon them. Se- 
vier set out at once to meet the red invaders. Learn 
ing from his scouts that the Indians were near he 
went into ambush with his troops disposed in the 
figure of a half-moon, the favorite Indian for- 
mation. He then sent out a small body of men 
to fire on the Indians and make a scampering re- 
treat, to lure the enemy on. The maneuver was so 
well planned and the ground so well chosen that the 
Indian war party would probably have been annihi- 
lated but for the delay of an officer at one horn of 
the half-moon in bringing his troops into play. 
Through the gap thus made the Indians escaped, 
with a loss of seventeen of theirnumber. The deli 
quent officer was Jonathan Tipton, younger brother 

‘ 226 ; 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 227 


| of Colonel John Tipton,of whom we shall hear later. 
It is possible that from this event dates the Lip- 


tons’ feud with Sevier, which supplies one of the 
breeziest _pages-in-the story of early Tennessee. 


- Not content with putting the marauders to flight, 
Sevier pressed on after them, burned several of the 
upper towns, and took prisoner a number of women 
| and children, thus putting the red warriors to the 


depth of shame, forthe Indians never deserted their 


women in battle. The chiefs at once sued for peace. 


Butthey had made peace often before. Sevier drove 


down upon the Hiwassee towns, meanwhile pro- 
claiming that those among the tribe who were 
friendly might send their families to the white 
settlement, where they would be fed and cared 
for until a sound peace should be assured. He 
also threatened to continue to make war until his 
enemies were wiped out, their town sites a heap of 
blackened ruins, and their whole country in pos- 
session of the whites, unless they bound them- 
selves to an enduring peace. 

_ Having compelled the submission of the Otari 
and Hiwassee towns, yet finding that depredations 
still continued, Sevier determined to invade the 
group of towns hidden in the mountain fastnesses 


near the headwaters of the Little Tennessee where, 


| om 
ere. 


~~ 


oo SS 


298 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


y 


deeming themselves inaccessible except—by._thei 
Te eee eannene. 

own trail, “the Cherokees freely plotted mischie 
and sent out raiding ing parties. These hill towns lay 


in the high gorges of the Great_Smoky Moun- 


tains, 150 miles distant. No one in Watauga had 
ever been in them except Thomas, the trader, who, 
however, had reached them from the eastern 


side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the 
Indians’ path and without a guide, yet nothing 
daunted, Sevier, late in the summer of 178] headed 
his force into the mountains. So steep were some 
of the slopes they scaled that the men were obliged 
to dismount and help their horses up. Unexpect- 
edly to themselves perhaps, as well as to the In- 
dians, they descended one morning on a group of 
villages and destroyed them. Before the fleeing 
savages could rally, the mountaineers had plunged 
up the steeps again. Sevier then turned southward 
into Georgia, and inflicted_a_severe castigation on 
the tribes.along the Coosa River. 

When, after thirty days of warfare and mad 
riding, Sevier arrived at his Bonnie Kate’s door 
on_the Nolichucky, he found a messenger from 
General Greene calling on him for immediate-as- 
sistance to cut off Cornwallis from his expected 
retreat through North Carolina. Again he set out, 


| 
rdhen ties 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 229 


and with two hundred men crossed the mountains 
and made all speed to_Charlotte, in Mecklenburg 
County, where he learned that Cornwallis had sur- 
rendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Un- 
der Greene’s orders he turned south to the Santee. 
to assist a fellow scion of the Huguenots, General 
Francis Marion, in the pursuit—of Stuart’s—Brit- 
ishers. Having driven Stuart into Charleston, 
Sevier and his active Wataugans returned home, 
now perhaps looking forward to a rest, which they 
had surely earned. Once more, however, they were 
hailed with alarming news. Dragging Canoe had 
come to life again and was emerging from the 
caves of the Tennessee with a substantial force of 
Chickamaugan-warriors. Again the Wataugans, 
augmented by a detachment from Sullivan Coun- 
ty, galloped forth, met the red warriors, chastised 
them heavily, put them to rout, burned their dwell- 
ings and provender, and drove them back into their 
hiding places. For some time after this, the In- 
dians dipped not into the black paint pots of war 
but were content to streak their humbled counte- 
nances with the vermilion of beauty and innocence. 


It should be chronicled that Sevier, assisted pos- 
sibly by other Wataugans, eventually returned 


“ys 


i 


i 


/j 


230 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


to the State.of North Carolina the money which 
he had forcibly borrowed to finance the King’s 
Mountain expedition; and that neither he nor 
Shelby received any pay for their services, not 
asked it. Before Shelby left_ the Holston in 178 
and moved to Kentucky, of which State he was to 
become the first Governor, the Assembly of North 
Carolina passed a resolution of gratitude to the 
overmountain men in general, and to Seyjer and 
Shelby in particular, for their “very generous and 
patriotic seryices’’ with which the “General A :- 
sembly of this State are feelingly impressed.”’ The 
resolution concluded by urging the recipients of 
the Assembly’s acknowledgments to “continue” 
in their noble course. In view of what followed, 
this resolution is interesting! 

For some time the overhill pioneers had been 
growing dissatisfied with the treatment they were 
receiving from the State, which on the \plea_ of 
poverty had refused to establish a Superior Court 
for them and to appoint a prosecutor. Asa res 
crime was on the increase, and the law-abiding were 
deprived of the proper legal means to check the law- 
less. In 1784 when the western soldiers’ claims be 
gan to reach the Assembly, there to be scrutinized 
by unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction increased 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 231 — 


The breasts of the mountain men — the men who” 
had made that spectacular ride to bring Ferguson 
to his end — were kindled with hot indignation 
when they heard that they had been publicly as- 
sailed as grasping persons who seized on every 
pretense to “fabricate demands against the Gov- 
ernment.” Nor were those fiery breasts cooled by 
further plaints to the effect that the “industry and 
property” of those east of the hills were “becom- 
ing the funds appropriated to discharge the debts” 
of the Westerners. They might with justice have 
asked what the industry and property of the East- 
erners were worth on that day when the overhill 
men drilled in the snows on the high peak.of Yellow 
Mountain and looked down on Burke County— 
overrun by Ferguson’s Tories, and beyond, to Char- 
lotte, where lay Cornwallis. — 

The North Carolina Assembly did not confine 
itself to impolite remarks. It proceeded to get rid 
of what it deemed western rapacity by ceding the 
eee orcemountain territory tothe United States 
with the proviso that Congress must accept the gift 
within twelve months. And after passing the Ces- 
sion-Aet, North Carolina closed the land_office in. 
the undesired domain and nullified all entries made 
after May 25, 1784. The Cession Act also enabled 


SS 
po ea 


~~ than the men of f Washington, Sullivan, and Green 


_ 232 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 
the State to evade its obligations to the Cherokee 
in the matter of an expensive consignment of good 
to pay for new lands. 

This clever stroke of the Assembly’s bioilll 
about immediate consequences in the region be 
yond the hills()’The Cherokees, who knew nothin 
about the Assembly’s.system_of_political econom 
but who found their own provokingly upset by.th 
non-arrival of the promised goods, began again t 
darken the mixture in their paint pots; and th 
dug up the war hatchet, never.indeed_ so deepl 
patted down under the dust that it could not k 
unearthed-by.a_stub of the toe. Needless to say 
it was not the thrifty and distant Easterners wh 
felt their anger, but the nearby settlements. __ 

As for the white overhill dwellers, the last stra 
had been laid on their backs; and it felt like a hick 
sory log. No sooner had the Assembly adjourne 


counties, which comprised the settled portiol 
of what is now east Tennessee, la 
to conyene for the purpose of discussing the for 
mation.of a new State. They could assert he 
they were not acting illegally, for in her first con 
stitution North Carolina = made _—_ 0 


sereeneterecremer rene) 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 233 


compelled them to take steps for their protec- 
tion. Some of them, and Sevier was of the number, 
| doubted if Congress would accept the costly gift; 
and the majority realized that during the twelve 
months which were allowed for the decision they 
| would have no protection from either North. Caro- 
_ Jina or Congress and would not be able to command 
their own resources. 


| - In August, 1784, the delegates met_at_Jones- 


borough and_passed_-preliminary_resolutions, and 
Hien adjourned | to. Aneet_later in the year. The 
lina and the Assembly convened in October and 
hastily repealed the Cession- Act, voted to-estab- 
lish the District of Washington-out.of the four 
count unties, and sent. -word of the altered policy to 
Sevier, with a commission for himself as Brigadier 
General. > From the steps of the improvised con- 
vention hall, before which the delegates had gath- 
ered, Sevier read the Assembly’s message and 
advised his neighbors to proceed no further, since 
North Carolina had of her own accord redressed 
alltheir grievances. But for once Nolichucky Jack’s 
followers refused to follow. The adventure too 
greatly appealed. Obliged to choose between North 


Carolina and his own people, Sevier’s hesitation 


234 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST q 
wasshort. The State of Frankland, or Land o the 
Free, was formed; and Nolichucky Jack was ele- 
vated to the office of Governor — with a yearly 
salary of two hundred mink cae 

Perhaps John Tipton had hoped to head the new 
State, for he had been one of its prime movers and 


was a delegate to this convention. But when the 
man whom he hated — apparently for no reason eX- ; 
cept that other men loved him — assented to the 
people’s will and was appointed to the highest 
post within their gift, Tipton withdrew, disavow- 
ing all connection with Frankland and affirming 
his loyalty to North Carolina. From this time on, 
the feud was an open one. 

That brief and now forgotten State, Frankland, 
the Land of the Free, which bequeathed its name 
as an 1 appellation for America, was founded as Wa- 
tauga had b been founded — to meet the practi 
needs and _ aspirations ions-of-its people. It will be re- 
membered that one of the things written by Sevier 
into the only Watauga document extant was that 
they desired to become “in every way thebest mem- 
bers of society.”” Frankland’s aims, as ronal 
included the intent to “improve agriculture, perfec 
manufacturing, encourage literature and every thin : 
truly laudable.” 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER ~— 235 
The constitution of Frankland, agreed to on the 
14th of November, 1785, appeals to us today rather 


| by its spirit than by its practical provisions. “This 


State shall be called the Commonwealth of Frank- 


land and shall be governed by a General Assembly 
of the representatives of the freemen of the same, a 


- Governor and Council, and proper courts of jus- 
tice. ... The supreme legislative power shall 


be vested in a single House of Representatives of 


ee ne 


the freemen of 1 the commonwealth of Frankland. 
The House of Representatives of the freemen of 
the State shall consist of persons most noted for 
wisdom and virtue.” 

In these exalted desires of the primitive men who 
held by their rifles and hatchets the land by the 
western waters, we see the influence of the Rever- 
end Samuel Doak, their,pastor, who founded the 
first church and the first school beyond the great 
hills. Early in the life > of Watauga he had come 
thither from Princeton, a zealous and broadminded 
young man, and a sturdy one, too, for he came on 
foot driving before him a mule laden with books. 
Legend credits another minister, the Reverend Sam- 
uel Houston, with suggesting the name of Frank- 
land, after he had opened the Convention with 
prayer. Itisnotsurprising to learn that this glorified 


_ waseagertojoin. Sevier and his Assembly took th 
necessary steps to receive the overhill Virginians, 
provided that the transfer of allegiance co 


236 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


constitution was presently put aside in favor of one 
modeled on that. of North Carolina. | 

Sevier persuaded the more radical members o 
the community to abandon their extreme views and 
to adopt thelaws of North Carolina. However law 
less his acts as Governor of a bolting colony may 
appear, Sevier was essentially a constructive force 
His purposes were right, and small motives are not 
discernible in his record. He might reasonably 
urge that the Franklanders had only followed t he 
example of North Carolina and the other American 
States in seceding from the parent body, and 
similar causes, for the State’s system of taxation 
had long borne heavily on the overhill men. | 

The whole transmontane populace welcomed 
Frankland with enthusiasm. Major Arthur Camp- 
bell, of the Virginian settlements, on the Holston 


be made with Virginia’s consent. Meanwhile 
he replied in a dignified manner to the ia 
and menacing expostulations of North Caroline? 
Governor. North Carolina was bidden to rena 


ber the epithets her assemblymen had hurled 
at the Westerners, which they themselves had by 


be 


7 


- SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 237 


-nomeans forgotten. And was it any wonder that 
they now doubted the love the parent State pro- 


fessed to feel for them? As for the puerile threat 
of blood, had their quality really so soon become 
obliterated from the memory of North Carolina? 
At this sort of writing, Sevier, who always pulsed 
hot with emotion and who had a pretty knack in 
turning a phrase, was more than a match for the 
Governor of North Carolina, whose prerogatives 
he had usurped. | 

The overmountain men no longer needed to 
complain bitterly of the lack of legal machinery to 
keep them “‘the best members of society.”” They 
now had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, 
its judges, its legislative body, its land office — in 
fact, a full governmental equipment. North Caro- 
lina also performed all the natural functions of 
political organism, within the western territory. 
Sevier appointed_oneDavid Campbell a judge 
peopel held court in J onesborough. Ten ni . 
for North Ere. eg haiapeiseal Fiquehtte that 
officers and attendants of the rival law courts met, 
as they pursued their duties, and whenever they 
met they fought. The post of sheriff — or sheriffs, 
for of course there were two — was filled by the 


_knowledged the compliment and advised the 


the Gavernor_of Georgia, who had previously ap- 


238 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitte 
in the ranks of the warring factions. A favorit 
game was raiding each other’s courts and carrying 
off the records. Frankland sent William Co 
later the first senator from Tennessee, to Congress 


it into the Union as a separate State. Congress 
ignored the plea. It began to appear that North 
Carolina would be victor in the end; and so there 


were defections among the Franklanders. Seviei 
wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking his aid in es 
tablishing the status of Frankland; and, with : 
graceful flourish of his ready pen, changed the new 
State’s name to Franklin by way of reinfor ing 
his arguments. But the old philosopher, more ex 
pert than Seyier in diplomatic calligraphy, only ae 


of Franklin to make peace withNorth-Carolina. 
Sevier then appealed for aid and recognition to 


pointed him Brigadier General of militia. But the 
Governor of Georgia also avoided giving the ree 
ognition requested, though he earnestly besought 
Sevier to come down and settle the Creeks for him. 
There were others who sent pleas to Sevier, the 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 239 


warrior, to save them from the savages. One of 
the writers who addressed him did not fear to say 
“Your Excellency,” nor to accord Nolichucky Jack 
the whole dignity of the purple in appealing to 
him as the only man possessing the will and the 
power to prevent the isolated settlements on the 
Cumberland from being wiped out. That writer 
was his old friend, James Robertson. 

-In 287, while Sevier was on the frontier of 
Greene County, defending it from Indians, the 
legal forces of North Carolina swooped down on 
his estate and took possession of his negroes. It 
was Tipton who represented the Jaw; and Tipton 
carried off the Governor’s slaves to his own estate. 
When Nolichucky Jack came home and found that 
his enemy had stripped him, he was in a towering 
rage. With a body of his troops and one small 
cannon, he marched to Tipton’s house and besieged 
it, threatening a bombardment. He did not, how- 
ever, fire into the dwelling, though he placed some 
shots about it and in the extreme corners. This 
opéra bouffe siege endured for several days, until 
Tipton was reinforced by some of his own clique. 
Then Tipton sallied forth and attacked the be- 
siegers, who hastily scattered rather than engage 
in a sanguinary fight with their neighbors. Tipton 


captured Sevier’s two elder sons and was only re 
strained from hanging them on being info 


that two of his own sons were at that moment ii 
Sevier’ s hands. 


eclipse. ie ‘yas overtime al 
af North Carolina. Most of the officials who hac 
served under him were soothed by being rea 
pointed to their old positions. Tipton’s star wa 
now in the ascendant, for his enemy was to be mad 
the vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all whom h 
had “‘led astray.’’ Presently David Campbell, stil 
graciously permitted to preside over the § 
rior_Court, received from the Governor of Nortl 
Carolina the following letter: 

Str: It has been represented to the Executive 
John Sevier, who styles himself Captain-General of th 
State of Franklin, has been guilty of high treason i 
levying troops to oppose the laws and government 
the State. . . . You will issue your warrant to appré 
hend the said John Sevier, and in case he cannot be suff 


ciently secured for trial in the District of Washing 
order him to be committed to the public gaol. 


The judge’s authority was to be exercised afte 
he had examined the “‘affidavits of credible pei 


sons.”” Campbell’s judicial opinion seems to ha’ 
been that any affidavit against “the said Joh 


ee 
: 

Sevier” could not be made by.a “credible person..”’ 
He refused to issue the warrant. Tipton’s friend, 
Spencer, who had been North Carolina’s judge _ 
of the Superior Court in the » West and w who was 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 241 


sharing that honor now with Campbell, issued the 
warrant and sent Tipton to make the arrest. 

Sevier was at the Widow Brown’s inn with some 
of his men when Tipton at last came up with him. 
[t was early morning. Tipton and his posse were 
about to enter when the portly and dauntless 
widow, surmising their errand, drew her chair into 
she doorway, plumped herself down in it, and re- 
‘used to budge for all the writs in North Carolina. 
Tipton blustered and the widow rocked. The al- 
ercation awakened Sevier. He dressed hurriedly 
und came down. As soon as he presented himself 
m the porch, Tipton thrust his pistol against his 
»ody, evidently with intent to fire if Sevier made 
signs of resistance. Sevier’s furious followers were 
10t disposed to let him be taken without a fight, 
out he admonished them to respect the law, and re- 
quested that they would inform Bonnie Kate of his 
oredicament. Then, debonair as ever, with perhaps 
a tinge of contempt at the corners of his mouth, he 
held out his wrists for the manacles which Ie 


nsisted on fastening upon them. 
iiticeenentsnenenn 


Ona Sma 


16 


Ge 
ie 
242 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


feared ariot; and it was decided to send the prisonel 
for incarceration and trial to Morgantown in Nort] 
Carolina, just over the hills. 

Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent 
with Sevier. It was stated and commonly believe 
that he had given instructions of which the honors 
able men among his friends were ignorant. Wher 
the party entered the mountains, two of the guard 
were to lag behind with the prisoner, till the others 
were out of sight on the twisting trail. Then one 
of the two was to kill Sevier and assert that he had 
done it because Sevier had attempted to escap e 
It fell out almost as planned, except that the othe 
guard warned Sevier of the fate in store for him 
and gave him a chance to flee. In plunging down 
the mountain, Sevier’s horse was entangled in 
a thicket. The would-be murderer overtook him 
and fired; but here again fate had interposed for 
her favorite. The ball had dropped out of the 
assassin’s pistol. So Sevier reached Morgantown 
in safety and was deposited in care of the sherif 
who was doubtless cautioned to take a good look 
at the prisoner and know him for a dangerous and 
a daring man. 


: SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 243 


_ There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier 
was arraigned in the courthouse at Morgantown 
and presently dashed through the door and away 
on a racer that had been brought up by some of his 
friends, among those who witnessed the proceed- 
ings was a young Ulster Scot named Andrew Jack- _ 
son; and that on this occasion these two men, later 
to become foes, first saw each other. Jackson may 
hhave been in Morgantown at the time, though this 
is disputed; but the rest of the tale is pure legend 
invented by some one whose love of the spectacular 
’ led him far from the facts. The facts are less the- 
atrical but much more dramatic. Sevier was not 
arraigned at all, for no court was sitting in Mor- 
gantown atthetime.* The sheriff to whom he was 
delivered did not need to look twice at him to know 
him for a daring man. He had served with him at 
King’s Mountain. He struck off his handcuffs and 
set him at liberty at once. Perhaps he also notified 
General Charles McDowell at his home in Quaker 
Meadows of the presence of a distinguished guest 
in Burke County, for McDowell-and his brother 
Joseph, another officer of militia, quickly appeared 
and went on Sevier’s bond. Nolichucky Jack was 


t Statement by John Sevier, Junior, in the Draper MSS., quoted by 
‘Turner, Life of General Jokn Sevier, p. 182. 


244 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
presently holding a court of his own in the taver 
with North Carolina’s men at arms—as many é 
were within call—drinking his health. So his sor 
and a company of his Wataugans found him, whe 
they rode into Morgantown to give evidence in h 
behalf — with their rifles. Since none now dispute 
the way with him, Sevier turned homeward with h 
cavalcade, McDowell and his men accompanyin 
him as far as the pass in the hills. . 
No further attempt was made to mn John Sem 
for treason, either _west.or-east-ofthemountain 
In November, however, the Asknablj: paaalall 
Pardon Act, and thereby granted absolution | 
every one who had been associated with the § Sta 
of Franklin, except John Sever. In aclause said 
have been introduced by Tipton, now a senator, 
suggested by him, John Sevier was debarred fc 
ever from “the enjoyment of any office of profit 


honor or trust in the State of North Carolina.” 

The overhill men in Greene County took du 
note of the Assembly’s fiat and at the next electi 
sent Sevier to the North Carolina Senate. No 
chucky Jack, whose (demeanor was never so de 
rous as when the ill-considered actions of chal 
authority had made him appear to have ci 
vented the law, considerately waited outside unt 


1 SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 245 
she House had lifted the ban — which it did per- 
‘force and by a large majority, despite Tipton’s 
ypposition — and then took his seat on the sena- 
orial bench beside his enemy. The records show 
hat he was reinstated as Brigadier General of the 
Counties and also appointed at the head 

- Committee on Indian Affairs. 
: Not only in the region about Watauga did the 
yioneers of Tennessee endure the throes of danger 
ind strife during these years. The little settle- 
ments on the Cumberland, which were scattered 
ver a short distance of about twenty-five or thirty 
niles.and had a frontier line of two hundred miles, 
terribly afflicted. Their nearest white neigh- 
among the Kentucky settlers were one hun- 
ired and fifty miles away; and through the cruelest 
years these could render no aid — could not, in- 
leed, hold their own stations. The Kentuckians, 
is we have seen, were bottled up in Harrodsburg 
ind Boonesboreugh; and, while the northern In- 
lians led by Girty and Dequindre darkened the 
3loody Ground anew, the Cumberlanders were 
naking a desperate stand against the Chickasaws 
ind the Creeks. So terrible was their situation 
hat panic took hold on them, and they would have 


246 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


fled but for the influence of Robertson. He . 
have put the question to them in the biblical wor 
“Whither shall I flee?” For they were surround 
and those who did attempt to escape were “ weigh 
on the path and made light.” Robertson kn 


that their only chance of survival was to sta 
their ground. The greater risks he was willing 
take in person, for it was he who made trips 
Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of 
powder and lead which John Sevier was sendi 
into Kentucky from time to time. In the stress 
conflict Robertson bore his full share of grief, 
his two elder sons and his brother fell. He hims 
was often near to death. One day he was cut 
in the fields and was shot in the foot as he r: 
yet he managed to reach shelter. There is a ste 
that, in an attack during one of his absences, tf 
Indians forced the outer gate of the fort 2 
Mrs. Robertson went out of her cabin, firing, a 
let loose a band of the savage dogs which the s 
tlers kept for their protection, and so drove ¢ 
the invaders. * 

The Chickasaws were loyal to.the treaty. th 
had made with the British in the early daigl 
James Adair’ s association with them. “They w 
friends to England’s friends and foes to her fc 


beg 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 247 


While they resented the new settlements made on 
and they considered theirs, they signed a peace 
vith Robertsox at the conclusion of the-War of 
ndependence.’ They kept their word with him as 
hey had kept it with the British. Furthermore, 
heir chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, 
ave Robertson his assistance against the Creeks 
nd the Choctaws and, in so far as he understood 
ts workings, informed him of the new Spanish and 
‘rench conspiracy, which we now come to consider. 
0 once again the Chickasaws were servants of 
estiny to the English-speaking race, for again 
hey drove the wedge of their honor into an Indian 
olidarity welded with European gold. 

Since it was generally believed at that date that 
he tribes were instigated to war by the British 
nd supplied by them with their ammunition, sav- 
ge inroads were expected to cease with the signing 
f peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; 
; increased. In the last two-years of the Revo- 
ition, when the British were driven from the 
sack Country of the Carolinas and could no longer 
each the tribes with consignments of firearms 


nd powder, it should have been evident that 
he Indians had other sources of supply and other 
llies, for they lacked nothing which could aid 


248 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


them in their efforts to exterminate the settle 
of Tennessee. 

Neither France nor Spain wished to see an Eng 
lish-speaking republic based on ideals of demoe 
racy successfully established in America. Thoug! 
in the Revolutionary War, France was a close ally 
of the Americans and Spain something more thai 
a nominal one, the secret.diplomacy of the co 
of the Bourben cousins ill matched with thei 
open professions. Both cousins hated Englane 
The American colonies, smarting under injusticé 
had offered a field for their revenge. But hatret 
of England was not the only reason why activitie 
had been set afoot to increase the discord whicel 
should finally separate the colonies from Great Brit 
ain and leave the destiny of the colonies to be de 
cided by the House of Bourbon. Spain saw in 
Americans, with their English modes of thought 
a menace to her authority in her own colonies 01 
both the northern and southern continents. Thi 
menace would not be stilled but augmented if th 
colonies should be established as a republic. 5 t 
an example might be too readily followed. Thou, 
France had, by a secret treaty in 1762, made ov 
to Spain the province of Louisiana, she was né 
unmindful of the Bourbon motto, “He who attack 


4i§ id 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 249 


the Crown of one attacks the other.” And she saw 
her chance to deal a crippling blow at England’s 
prestige and commerce. 

MMIn 1764, the French Minister, Choiseul, had sent 
a secret agent, named Pontleroy, to America to as- 
sist in making trouble and to watch for any signs 
that might be turned to the advantage of les deux 
couronnes. Evidently Pontleroy’s reports were en- 
couraging for, in 1768, Johann Kalb — the same 
Kalb who fell at Camden in 1780 — arrived in Phil- 
adelphia to enlarge the good work. He was not 
only, like several of the foreign officers in the War 
of Independence, a spy for his Government, but he 
was also the special emissary of one Comte de Brog- 
lie who, after the colonies had broken with the 
mother country, was to put himself at the head of 
American affairs/ This Broglie had been for years 
one of Louis XV’s chief agents in subterranean 
diplomacy, and it is not to be supposed that he 
was going to attempt the stupendous task of 
controlling America’s destiny without substantial 
backing. Spain had been advised meanwhile to 
rule her-new_Louisiana-territory with great liber- 
ality — in fact, to let it shine as a republic before 
the yearning eyes of the oppressed Americans, so 
that the English colonists would arise and cast off 


Oh A ee 


250 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


their fetters. Once the colonies had freed them- 
selves from England’s protecting arm, it would be 


a simple matter for the Bourbons to gather them ir 
like so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard, 
The intrigants of autocratic systems have never 
been able to understand that the urge of the spirit 
of independence in men is not primarily to break 
shackles but to stand alone and that the breaking 
of bonds is incidental to the true demonstration of 
freedom. The Bourbons and their agents were ne 
more nor less blind to the great principle stirring 
the hearts of men in their day than were the Prus 
sianized hosts over a hundred years later who, hay- 
ing themselves no acquaintance with the law of 
liberty, could not foresee that half a world wou 
rise in arms to maintain that law. 

When the War of Independence had ended, the 
French Minister, Vergennes, and the Spanish Min: 
ister, Floridablanca, secretly worked in unison to 
prevent England’s recognition of the new republic; 
and Floridablanca in 1782 even offered to assist 
England if she would make further efforts to sub 
due her “‘rebel subjects.”’ Both Latin powers had 
their own axes to grind, and America was to tend 


the grindstone. Mreoaes looked for recovery. of he her 


old prestige in Eufope and <r to supersede 


_ 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 251 


land in commerce. She would do this, in the 
perch cigh control of America and _ 
ofAmerica’s commerce. Vergennes thereforesought 
not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also 
to say what the American commissioners should 
and should not demand. Of the latter gentle- 
men he said that they possessed “‘caractéres peu 


maniables!”” In writing to Luzerne, the French 
Ambassador in Philadelphia, on October 14,1782, 
Vergennes said: “it behooves us to leave them 
[the American commissioners] to their illusions, 
to do everything that can make them fancy that 
we share them, and undertake only to defeat any 
attempts to which those illusions might carry them 
if our codperation is required.” Among these 
“illusions”? were America’s desires in regard to the 
fisheries and to the western territory. Concern- 
ing the West, Vergennes had written to Luzerne, 
as early as July 18,1780: “At the moment when 
the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thir- 
teen States did not reach the River [Mississippi] 
‘and it would be absurd for them to claim the 
rights of England, a power whose rule they had 
abjured.”’ By the secret treaty with Spain, further- 
more, France had agreed to continue the war until 


Gi taken, and — if the British 


Oe a eS ae 


252 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST | 


should be driven from Newfoundland — to sha 
the fisheries only with Spain, and to support Spai 
in demanding that the Thirteen States renounce al 
territory west of the Alleghanies. The America 
States must by no means achieve a genuine inde 
pendence but must feel the need of sureties, allie 
and protection. 

So intent was Vergennes on these aims that b 
sent a secret emissary to England to further then 
there. This act of his perhaps gave the first ink 
ling to the English statesmen? that American 2 
French desires were not identical and hastene 
England’s recognition of American independence 
and her agreement to American demands in regar 
to the western territory. When, to his amazement 
Vergennes learned that England had acceded t 
all America’s demands, he said that England had 
“bought the peace” rather than made it. 
policy of Vergennes in regard to America was no 
unjustly pronounced by a later French statesm a1 
“a vile speculation.” 


See John Jay, On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1788 as Illustrat 
by the Secret Correspondence of France and England, New York, 188% 
2“ Your Lordship was well founded in your suspicion that the gra 
ing of independence to America as a previous measure is a point whic 
the French have by no means at heart and perhaps are entirely avers 
from.” Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham, September 3, 17% 


ss SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER = 253 

Through England’s unexpected action, then, the 
Bourbon cousins had forever lost their opportunity 
‘to dominate the young but spent and war-weak- 
med Republic, or to use America as a caispaw to 
}snatch English commerce for France. It wasplam, 
too, that any frank move of the sort would range 
the English alongside of their American kinsmen. 
Since American Independence was an accomplished 
)fact and therefore could no longer be prevented. 
“the present object of the Bourbon cousins was to 
Testrict it. The Appalachian Mountains should 
“be the western limits of the new nation. There- 
| fore the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee 


be be broken up, or the settlers must be induced 
| banner. The laiier alternative was held to be 
preferable. To bring it about the same methods 
| were to be continued which had been used prior 
‘to and during the war — namely, the use of agents 
‘provocateurs to corrupt the ignorant and incite the _ 
lawless. the instigation of Indian massacres to 


As her final and supreme means of coercion, 
“Spain refused to America the righ t_of navigation 
on the issippi and so deprived the Westerners 


zi 
~- 


& 


TE eae 
254 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
ofa market f or their produce. The Northern State s, 


having no immediate use for the Mississippi, 


were willing to placate Spain by acknowledging 
her monopoly of the great waterway. But Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina were determined that 
America should not, by congressional enactment, 
surrender her “natural right”’; and they cited the 
proposed legislation as their reason for refusing 
to ratify the Constitution. “‘The act which aban- 
dons it [the right of navigation] is an act of separa- 
tion between the eastern and western country,” 
Jefferson realized at last. “An act of separation , 
— that point had long been very clear to the Latin 
sachems of the Mississippi Valley! 

Bounded as they were on one side by the pre- 
cipitous mountains and on the other by the south- 
ward flow of the Mississippi and its tributary, the 
Ohio, the trappers and growers of corn in Kentuc 
and western Tennessee regarded New Orleans as 
their logical market, as the wide waters were their 
natural route. If market and route were to be 
closed to them, their commercial advancement was 
something less than a dream. . 

In 1785, Don Estevan Miré,-a gentleman—of 
artful and winning address, became Goyernor of 
Louisiana and fountainhead of the propaganda. 


_ 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 255 


He wrote benign and brotherly epistles to James 


Robertson of the Cumberland and to His Excel- 
lency of Franklin, suggesting that to be of service 
to them was his dearest aim in life; and at the same 


_ time he kept the southern Indians continually on 


the warpath. When Robertson wrote to him of the 
Creek and Cherokee depredations, with a hint that 


the Spanish might have some responsibility in the 
matter, Miré replied by offering the Cumberlander 


_asafe home on Spanish territory with freedom of 


religion and no taxes. He disclaimed stirring up 
the Indians. He had, in fact, advised Mr. Mc- 


Gillivray, chief of the Creeks, to make peace. He 


_ would try again what he could do with Mr. McGil- 


livray. As to the Cherokees, they resided in a very 
distant territory and he was not acquainted with 
them; he might have added that he did not need 
to be: his friend McGillivray was the potent 
personality among the Southern tribes. 

In Alexander McGillivray, Miro found a weapon 
fashioned to his hand: If the Creek chieftain’s 
figure might stand as the symbol of treachery, it is 
none the less one of the most picturesque and pa- 
thetic in our early annals. McGillivr ray, it will be 
remembered, was the son of Adair’s s friend Lachlan 


ad 


McGillivray,the trader, anda Creek woman whose 


AE ee oe ee 
: A’ " 


256 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


sire had been a French officer. A brilliant and 
beautiful youth, he had given his father a pride in 
him which is generally denied to the fathers of sons 
with Indian blood in them. The Highland trader 
had spared nothing in his son’s education and had 
placed him, after his school days, in the business 
office of the large trading establishment of which 
he himself was a member. At about the age of 
seventeen. Alexander had become a chieftain in his 


mother’s nation; and doubtless it is he who appear: 

shortly afterwards in the Colonial Records as the 
White Leader whose influence is seen to have been 
ati work for friendship between the colonists and 
_ the tribes. When the Revolutionary War broke 
Xout, Lachlan McGillivray, like many of the old 
traders who had served British interests so long 
and so faithfully, held tothe British-cause: Geor- 
gia confiscated all his property and Lachlan fled to 
Scotland. For this, his son hated the people of 

Georgia with a perfect hatred. He remembered 
how often his father’s courage alone had stood be- 
tween those same people and the warlike Creeks. — 
He could recall the few days in 1760 when Lachlan ~ 
and his fellow trader, Galphin, at the risk of their 
lives had braved the Creek warriors — already |! 
painted for war and on the march —and so had 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 257 


saved the settlements of the Back Country from 
extermination. Helooked upon the men of Georgia 
as an Indian regards those who forget either a 
blood gift or a blood vengeance. And he em- 
braced the whole American nation in his hatred for 
their sakes. 
_ In 1776 Alexander McGillivray was in his early 
thirties — the exact date of his birth is uncertain.* 
‘He had, we are told, the tall, sturdy, but t spare 
: physique of of the Gael, with a countenance of Indian 
color though not of Indian cast. His overhang- 
jing b brows made more striking, hi his very large and 
Tuminous dark eyes. He bore himself with great 
entity: his voice was soft, his manner gentle. He 
might have been supposed to be some Latin court- 
ier but for the barbaric display of his dress and his 
ornaments. He possessed extraordinary personal 
magnetism, and his power extended beyond the 
Creek nation to the Choctaws and Chickasaws and 
the Southern Cherokees. He had long been wooed 
by the Louisiana authorities, but there is no evi- 
dence that he had made alliance with them prior to 


the Revolution. 


t Probably about 1741 or 1742. Some writers give 1739 and others 
1746. His father landed in Charleston, Pickett (History of Alabama) 
Says, in 1735, and was then only sixteen. 


I7 


hae Lian hah dais) dies. 


258 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Early in the war he joined the British, received 
a colonel’s commission, and led his formidable 
Creeks against the people.of-Georgia. When the 
British were driven from the Back Countries, Me 
Gillivray, in his British uniform, went on with thi 
war. When the British made peace, McGillivray 
exchanged his British uniform for a Spanish one 
and went on with the war. In later days, when he 
had forced Congress to pay him for his father’s con 
fiscated property and had made peace, he wore the 
uniform of an American Brigadier General; but he 
did not keep the peace, never having intended 
keep it. It was not until he had seen the Spanish 
plots collapse and had realized that the Americans 
were to dominate the land, that the White Leader 
ceased from war and urged the.youths-of-his-tribe 


to adopt American civilization. 


Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he 
retired at last to the spot where Lachlan had set up 
his first-Creek home. Here he lived his few re- 
maining days in a house which he built on the site 
of the old ruined cabin about which still stood the 
little grove of apple trees his father had planted. 
He died at the age of fifty of a fever contracted 
while he was on a business errand in Pensa ‘Ola. 
Among those who visited him in his last years, 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 259 © 


2as left this description of him: “Dissipation has 
sapped a constitution originally delicate and feeble. 
He possesses an atticism of diction aided by a 
liberal education, a great fund of wit and humor 
aeliorated by a perfect good nature and polite- 
ness.” Set beside that kindly picture this rough 
etching by James Robertson: “The biggest devil 
among them [the Spaniards] is the half Spaniard, 
half Frenchman, half Scotchman and altogether 
Creek scoundrel, McGillivray.” 

_ How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we 
know from the bloody annals of the years which 
followed the British-American peace, when the 
men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were 
on the defensive continually. How cleverly Mird. 
played his personal réle we discover in the letters 
addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These 
letters show that, as far as words go at any rate, 
the founders of Tennessee were willing to negotiate 
with Spain. In a letter dated September 12, 1788, 
Sevier offered himself and his tottering State of 
Franklin to the Spanish King. This offer may have 
been made to gain a respite, or it may have been 
genuine. ‘The situation in the Tennessee settle- 
ments was truly desperate, for neither North Caro- 
lina nor Congress apparently cared in the least 


260 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


what befell them or how soon. North Carolina in- 
deed was in an anomalous position, as she had no 
yet ratified the Federal Constitution. If Frank- 
lin went out of existence and the territory which © 
it included became again part of North Caro- 
lina, Sevier knew that a large part of the newly. 
settled country would, under North Carolina’s trea- 
ties, reyert to the Indians. That meant ruin to’ 
large numbers of those who had put their faith in 
his star, or else it meant renewed conflict either 
with the Indians or with the parent State. The 
probabilities are that Sevier hoped to play the 
Spaniards against the Easterners who, even while 
denying the Westerners’ contention that the moun- 
tains were a “natural” barrier between them, were 
making of them a barrier of indifference. It would 
seem so, because, although this was the very aim > 
of all Mird’s activities so that, had he been assured 
of the sincerity of the offer, he must have grasped 
at it, yet nothing definite was done. And Sevier 
was presently informing Shelby, now in Kentucky, 
that there was a Spanish plot afoot to seize the 
western country. 

Miré had other agents besides MeGilli —_— 
who, by the way, was costing Spain, for his own 
services and those of four tribes aggregating over - 


. 


jf 


Pi 
be 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 261 


six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand 


dollars a year. McGillivray did very well as super- 
_ intendent of massacres; but the Spaniard required 
_a different type of man, an American who enjoyed 
his country’s trust, to bring the larger plan to 


fruition. Miré found that man in General James 
Wilkinson, lately of the Continental_Army and 


now a resident of Kentucky, which territory Wil- 


-kinson undertook to deliver to Spain, for a price. 


In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of alle- - 
giance to Spain and is listed in the files of the 


Spanish secret service, appropriately, as “‘ Number 


Thirteen.”’ He was indeed the thirteenth at table, 
the Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle 
height, Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, and 
remarkably magnetic. Of a good, if rather im- 
poverished, Maryland family, he was well educated 
and widely read for the times. With a brilliant 
and versatile intellectuality and ready gifts as a 
speaker, he swayed men easily. He was a bold 
soldier and was endowed with physical courage, 


though when engaged in personal contests he 


seldom exerted it — preferring the red tongue of 
slander or the hired assassin’s shot from behind 
cover. His record fails to disclose one commend- 
able trait. He was inordinately avaricious, but 


262 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


love of money was not his whole motive force: he 
had a spirit so jealous and malignant that he hated 
to the death another man’s good. He seemed to 
divine instantly wherein other men were weak 
and to understand the speediest and best means 
of suborning them to his own interests — or of 
destroying them. . 

Wilkinson was able to lure a number of.Ken- 
tuckians into the separatist mowement. George 
Rogers Clark.seriously disturbed the arch plotter 
by seizing a Spanish trader’s store wherewith to 
pay his_soldiers, whom Virginia had omitted to 
recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of 
the Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen’s per- 
fect loyalty or as to his ability to deliver the west- 
ern country. In 1786, when Clark led two thousand 
men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his 
only unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had al- 
ready settled himself near the Falls (Louisyille) and 
had looked about for mischief which he might 
do for profit. Whether his influence had anything 
to do with what amounted virtually to a mutiny — 
among Clark’s forces is not ascertainable; but, for 
a disinterested onlooker, he was overswiit to spread 
the news of Clark’s debacle and to declare gleefully 


that Clark’s sun of military glory had now forever 


bd 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 263 


It is also known that he later served other 
generals treacherously in Indian expeditions and 
that he intrigued with Mad Anthony Wayne’s 
I Se swine canines 
# Spain did not wish to see the Indians crushed; 
and Wilkinson himself both | hated and feared | d any 
‘ott ther officer’s prestige. How long he had been in 
foreign pay we can only conjecture, for, several 
"years before he transplanted his activities to Ken- 
tucky, he had been one of a cabal against Wash- 
‘ington. Not only his ambitions but his nature 
“must inevitably have brought him to the death- 
paitle with George Rogers Clark. As a military 
Resider, Clark had genius, and soldiering was his 
“passion. In nature, he was open, frank, and bold 
sto make foes if he scorned a man’s way as ignoble 
or dishorrest. Wilkinson suavely set about schem- 


oa ’ 


‘ing for in. His communication or memo- 
‘rial to the Virginia Assembly — signed by himself 
and a number of his friends — villifying Clark, 
-endedClark’s chances for the commission in the 
_ Continental Army which he craved. It was Wil- 
_kinson who made public an incriminating letter 
which had Clark’s signature attached and which 


f Clark said he had never seen. It is to be supposed 
a Number Thirteen was responsible also for 


264 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


the malevolent ie i accusing Clark 


found its way into the Colegeed of State Papers of 


Virginia.t As aresult, Clark was censured by Vir- 
ginia. Thereupon he petiaemad for a Court of In- 


quiry, but this was not granted. Wilkinson had to — 


get rid of Clark; for if Clark, with his military gifts 
and his power over men, had been elevated to a 


position of command under the smile of the Govern- © 


ment, there would have been small opportunity 
for James Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and 
to gather in Spanish gold. So the machinations of 


one of the vilest traitors who ever sold his country — 


were employed to bring about the stultification — 


and hence the downfall of a great servant. 


Wilkinson’s chief aids were-thetrishmen, O’Fal- 
lon, Nolan, and Powers. Through Nolan, he also 


Yended Spanish secrets. He sold, indeed, what- 


ever and whomever he could get his price for. So 


clever was he that he escaped detection, though © 


he was obliged to remove some suspicions. He 
succeeded Wayne as commander of the regular 
army in 1796. He was one of the commissioners 


t See Thomas M. Greene’s The Spanish Conspiracy, p. 72, footnote. 
It is possible that Wilkinson’s intrigues provide data for a new biog- 
raphy of Clark which may recast in some measure the accepted view 
of Clark at this period. 


SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER 265 


| to receive Louisiana when the Purchase was ar- 
ranged in 1803. He was still on the Spanish pay 
roll at that time. ‘Wilkinson’ s true record came to 
Saght only when the Spanish archives were opened 


to investigators. 

There were British agents also in the Qld South- 
west, for the dissatisfaction of the Western men 
inspired in Englishmen the hope of recovering the 

‘Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, Governor of 
Canada, wrote to the British Government that he 
had been approached by important Westerners; but 

_ he received advice from England to move slowly. 
For complicity in the British schemes, William 
Blount, who was first territorial Governor of Ten- 
nessee and later a senator from that State, was 

expelled from the Senate. 

Surely there was never a more elaborate network 
of plots that came to nothing! The concession to 
Americans in 1796 of the right of navigation on the 
Mississippi brought an end to the scheming. _ 


In the same year Tennessee was admitted to the 
Union, and John Sevier was elected Governor. Se- 
vier’s popularity was undiminished, though there 
were at this time some sixty—thousand souls in 
Tennessee, many of whom were late comers who 


f 


266 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


had not known him in his heyday. His old powell 
to win men to him must have been as strong as 
ever, for it is recorded that he had only to enter 
a political meeting — no matter whose — for the 
crowd to cheer him and shout for him to “give 
them a talk.” 

This adulation of Sevier still annoyed a few men 
who had ambitions of their own. Among these was 
Andrew Jackson, who had come to Jonesborough 
in 1788, just after the collapse of the State of 
Franklin. He was twenty-one at that time, and 
he is said to have entered Jonesborough riding 
a fine racer and leading another, with a pack of 
hunting dogs baying or nosing along after him. A 
court record dated May 12, 1788, avers that “An- 
drew Jackson, Esq. came into Court and produced 


to said office and Was admitted to Practiss as an 
Attorney in the County Courts.”~ “Jackson made 
no history in old Watauga during that year. Next 
year he moved to Nashville, and one year later, : 
when the Superior Court was established (1790), 
he became prosecuting attorney. | 
The feud between Jackson and Sevier began 


about the time that Tennessee entered the Union. 


7 


— 


] SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER © 267 


Jackson, then twenty-nine, was defeated for the 
: post of Major General of the Militia through the 
influence which Sévier exercised against him, and_ 
it see seems ‘that Jackson never forgave this opposi- 
tion to ) his ambitions. By the close of Sevier’s third 
term, Boeever i in 1802, when Archibald Roane e be- 
came Governor, the post of Major General was again 
yacant. Both Sevier and Jackson offered them- 
“selves for it, and Jackson was elected by the decid- 
ing vote of the Governor, the military vote having 
“resulted in a tie. A strong current of influence 
had now set in against Sevier and involved charges 
against his honor. His old enemy Tipton was 
still active. The basis of the charges was a file of 
papers from the entry-taker’s office which a friend 
of Tipton’s had laid before the Governor, with 
an affidavit to the effect that the papers were 
fraudulent. Both the Governor and Jackson be- 
lieved the charges. When we consider what sys- 
tem or lack of system of land laws and land entries 
obtained in Watauga and such primitive com- 
munities — when a patch of corn sealed a right 
and claims were made by notching trees with toma- 
hawks: — we may imagine that a file from the land 
office might appear easily enough to smirch a land- 
holder’s integrity. The scandal was, of course, 


268 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


used in an attempt to ruin Sevier’s candida 
a fourth-term-as-Gevernor and to make cert 
Roane’s _Teélection. To this end Jackson be 
all his energies . but without success. Nolichuc 
Jack was.elected, for the fourth time, as Goven 
of Tennessee. * 

Not long after his inauguration, Sevie Fac 
son in-Knoxville, where Jackson was holding cou 
The charges against Sevier were then being ma 
the subject of legislative investigation institut 
by Tipton, and Jackson had published a letter 
the KnoxvilleGazetfesupportingthem. Atthesig 
of Jackson, Sevier flew into a rage, and a fie 
altercation ensued. The two men were only 
strained from leaping on each other by the int 
vention of friends. The next day Jackson se 
Sevier a challenge which Sevier accepted, but wi 
the stipulation that the duel take place outside t 
State. Jackson insisted on fighting in Knoxvill 
where the insult had been offered. Sevier refuse 
“*T have some respect,”’ he wrote, “for the laws 
the State over which I have the honor to presic¢ 
although you, a judge, appear to have none.” N 
duel followed; but, after some further billets-d 
Jackson published Sevier as “‘a base coward ai 
poltroon. He will basely insult but has not t 


\ MM) MM ae, I 


purage to repair the wound.” Again they met, 
pyaccident, and Jackson rushed upon Sevier with 
is cane. Sevier dismounted and drew his pistol 
ut made no move to fire. Jackson, thereupon, 
so drew his weapon. Once more friends inter- 
= It is erable = neither really de- 
would al ended Baas own career in s Tennenee 
—if Sevier’s tribe of sons had not, by a swifter 
eans, ended it for him. At this date Jackson 
as thirty-six. Sevier was fifty-eight; and he had 
eventeen children. 
| The charges against Sevier, though pressed with 
ull the force that his enemies could bring to bear, 
pee to nothing. He Gea the Governor of 


ars — the three terms 
eight years allowed by the constitution. In 1811 
€ was sent to Congress for the second time, as he 
ad represented the Territory there twenty years 
earlier. He wasreturned again in 1813. Atthecon- 
usion of his term in 1815 he went into the Creek 
untry as commissioner to determine the Creek 
boundaries, and here, far from his Bonnie Kate and 
his tribe, he died of fever at the age of seventy. His 
body was buried with full military honors at Tucka- 
batchee, one of the Creek towns. In 1889, Sevier’s 


srk 


270 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


remains were removed to Knoxville and a hi 
marble spire was raised above them. 

His Indian enemies forgave the chastisement 
had inflicted on them and honored him. In tim 
of peace they would come to him frequently - 
advice. And in his latter days, the chiefs wou 
make state visits to his home on the Nolichuel 
River. “John Sevier is a good man” —so ¢ 
clared the Cherokee, Old Fassel, making hims 
the spokesman of history. 

Sevier had survived his old friend, co-foun J 
with him of Watauga, by one year. James Rol 
ertson had died in 1814 at the age of seventy-tw 
among the Chickasaws, and his body, like that of 
his fellow pioneer, was buried in an Indian towr 
and lay there until 1825, —— it was removed 
to Nashville. RE : 


What of the red tribes who had fought these 
great pioneers for the wide land of the Old South 
west and who in the end had received their dust 
and treasured it with honor in the little soil re 
maining tothem? Always the new boundary lines 
drew closer in, and the red men’s foothold nar 
rowed before the pushing tread of the whites. The 
day came soon when there was no longer room for 


MAMAW ) MNES OE 
SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER a7] 


yem in the land of their fathers. But far off across 
pe great river there was a land the white men did 
ot covet yet. Thither at last the tribes—€ | 
vhoctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek — took eee 
— al 

ray. With wives and children, maids and youths, 


xe old and the young, with all their goods, their 
attle and horses, in the company of a regiment 
f American troops, they—like the white men 
rho had superseded them — turned westward. In 
neir faces also was the red color of the west, but 
jot newly there. From the beginning of their race, 
Jestiny had painted them with the hue of the brief 
jour of the dying sun. 


She. ald 6 See 


CHAPTER XI 
BOONE’S LAST DAYS 


One spring day in 1799, there might have bee 
observed a great stir through the valley of 
Kanawha. With the dawn, men were ahorse, 2 
women, too. Wagons crowded with human freigh 
wheeled over the rough country, and boats, large 
and small, were afloat on the streams which pour 
into the Great Kanawha and at length mingle with 
the Ohio at-Point Pleasant, where the battle wa § 
fought which opened the gates of Kentucky. _ 
Some of the travelers poured into the little settle. 


ment at the junction of he Elk and the k wha 
later in putin or had come from a greater dis 
tance, gathered along the banks of the Kanawhe 
At last shouts from those stationed farthest up the 
stream echoed down the valley and told the res 
that what they had come out to see was at hand 


Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, 
272 


if 


(3 
(ho 


.BOONE’S LAST DAYS 273 


iow brightening in the sunshine. In the vessels 
ere men and their families; bales and bundles and 
pieces of household furnishings, heaped to the gun- 
wale; a few cattle and horses standing patiently. 
But it was for one man above all that the eager 


yes of the settlers were watching, and him they 
saw Clearly as his boat swung by — a tall-figure, 
srect and powerful, his keen friendly blue eyes un- 
dimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, though 
sixty-five winters had frosted his black hair. 

“For a decade these settlers had known Daniel 
Boone, as storekeeper, as surveyor, as guide and 
soldier. They had eaten of the game he killed and 
lavishly distributed. And they too — like the folk 
of Clinch Valley in the year of Dunmore’s War — 
had petitioned Virginia to bestow military rank 
upon their protector. ‘‘Lieutenant Colonel’? had 
been his title among them, by their demand. Once 
indeed he had represented them in the Virginia 


Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged_to Rich- 
mond with-rifle-end-hunting dog. Not interested 


in the Legislature’s proceedings, he left early in the 
session and tramped home again. 

But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors 
could hold the great hunter when the deer had fled. 
So Daniel Boone was now on his way westward to 

18 


274 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST — 


Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and wid 
spaces, where the hunter’s gun might speak it 
one word with authority and where the soul of 
silent and fearless man might find its true abo d 
in Nature’s solitude. Waving his last farewells, h 
floated past the little groups — till their shouts o 
good will were long silenced, and his fleet swung 
out upon the Qhio. 

As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River 
which forms the northern boundary g ate 
old friends and newcomers who had only ee his 
fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed 
him on his way. Sometimes he paused for a day 
with them. Once at least — this was in Cincinnati 
where he was taking on supplies — some one asked 
him why, at his age, he was leaving the settled coun- 
try to dare the frontier once more. ; 

“Too crowded,” he answered; Hilbo want more 


eigen -room!”’ 


Boone settled at the Femme baa Creek on the 
Missouri River, twenty-five milesaboveSt,.Ch 


where the Missouri flows into the Mississippi. n oa 
were four other Kentucky families at La Charette, 
as the French inhabitants called the post, but these 
were the only Americans. The Spanish authorities 
granted Boone 840 acres of land, and here Danie el 


\ ‘ MA Ak wn 
La 


/ 


BOONE’S LAST DAYS Q75 
puilt the last cabin home he was to erect for himself 
and his s Rebecca. 

} “The region pleased him immensely. The gov- 
lernmental system, for instance, was wholly to his 
mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There were no 
elections, assemblies, or the like. A single magis- 
trate, or Syndic, decided all disputes and made the 
few regulations and enforced them. There were 
no land speculators, no dry-mouthed sons of the 
commercial Tantalus, athirst for profits. Boone 
used to say that his first years in Missouri were the 
happiest of his life, with the exception of his first 
- hunt in Kentucky. 

In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the dis- 
triet of Femme Osage, which office he filled for four 
years, until Louisiana became American territory. 


He was held in high esteem as a magistrate because 


yt . 


of his just and wise treatment of his flock, who 
brought him all their small bickerings to settle. 
He had no use for legal procedure, would not listen 
to any nice subtleties, saying that he did not care 
anything at all about the evidence, what he wanted 
was the truth. His favorite penalty for offenders 
was the hickory rod “well laid on.” Often he de- 
cided that both parties in a suit were equally to 
blame and chastised them both alike. When in 


276 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


March, 1804, the American Commissioner recei le 
Louisiana for the United States, Delassus, Lieuten | 
ant Governor of Upper Louisiana, a a on 
the various officials in the territory, wrote of th 
Femme Osage Syndic: “Mr. Boone, a respectable 
old man, just and impartial, he has already, since 
I appointed him, offered his resignation owing to 
his infirmities. Believing I know his probity, I 
have induced him to remain, in view of my confi- 
dence in him, for the public good.”’? 

Daniel, no doubt supposing that a Syndic’s 
rights were inviolable, had neglected to apply to 
the Governor at New Orleans for a ratification 
of his grant. He was therefore dispossessed. Not 
until 1810, and after he had enlisted the Kentucky 
Legislature in his behalf, did he succeed in indue 
ing Congress to restore his land. The Kentucky 
Legislature’s resolution was adopted because of 


“the many eminent services rendered by Colon e] 
Boone in exploring and settling the western coun- 
try, from which great advantages havé resulte d 
not only to the State but to the country in general, 
and that from circumstances over which he had no 


t Thwaites, Daniel Boone. To this and other biographies of Boone, 
cited in the Bibliographical Note at the end of this volume, the 
author is indebted for the material contained in this chapter. 


i BOONE’S LAST DAYS 277 


mtrol he is now reduced to poverty; not having so 
a as appears an acre of land out of the vast terri- 
cory | he has been a great instrument in peopling.” 
aniel was seventy-six then; so it was late in the 
Jay for him to have his first experience of justice 
in the matter of land. Perhaps it pleased him, 
however, to hear that, in confirming his grant, 
Congress had designated him as “the man who has 
opened the way for millions of his fellow-men.” 
_ The “infirmities” which had caused the good 

adic to seek relief from political cares must have 
cy magisterial. The hunter could have 
been very little affected by them, for as soon as he 
was freed from his duties Boone took up again the 
silent challenge of the forest. Usually one or two 
of his sons or his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, 
accompanied him, but_sometimes his. only com- 
panions were an old Indian and his hunting dog. 
On « one of his hunting trips he explored a part of 
Kansas; and in 1814, when he was eighty, he hunted 
hig_gamein-the Yellowstone where again his heart 
rejoiced over great herds as in the days.of his first 
lone wanderings-in_the Blue Grass country. At 
last, with the proceeds of these expeditions he was 
able to pay the debts he had left behind in Ken- 
tucky thirty years before. The story runs that 


978 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


Daniel had only fifty cents remaining when | 
the claims had been settled, but so contented WwW 
he to be able to look an honest man in ‘the. a 
that he was in no disposition to murmur ee 
his poverty. 

When after a long and happy life his wife di 
in 1813, Boone lived with one or other of his son: | 
and sometimes with Flanders ~ Calloway. 
than Boone, with whom Daniel chiefly : made k 
home, built what is said to have been the first st if 
housein Missouri. Evidently the old pioneer disay 
' proved of stone houses and of the “luxuries” 
furnishings which were then becoming possib! 
to the new generation, for one of his biographe 
speaks of visiting him in a log addition to his so 2 
house; and when Chester Harding, the painter 
visited him in 1819 for the purpose of doing ni 
portrait, he found Boone dwelling in a small lo 
cabin in Nathan’s yard. When Harding entered 
Boone was broiling a venison steak on the end a 
hisramrod. During the sitting, one day, Hardin; 


x Boone’s son Nathan won distinction in the War of 1812 and en 
tered the regular army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel 
Daniel Morgan Boone is said to have been the first settler in Kans: 
(1827). One of Daniel's grandsons, bearing the name of Albe 
Gallatin Boone, was a pioneer of Colorado and was to the forefront 
in Rocky Mountain exploration. Another grandson was the scout 
Kit Carson, who led Frémont to California. 


BOONE’S LAST DAYS 279 


when on his long hunts in the wilderness. 
' “No, I never got lost,’’ Boone replied reflec- 
1 tively, “but I was bewildered once for three days.” 
Though now having reached the age of eighty- 
ive, Daniel was intensely interested in California, 
ar d was enthusiastic to make the journey thither 
next spring and so to flee once more from the 
tivilization which had crept westward along his 
path. The resolute opposition of his sons, how- 
ev er, prevented the attempt. 
A few men who sought out Boone in his old age 
have left us brief accounts of their impressions. 
Among these was Audubon. “The stature and gen- 
eral appearance of this wanderer of the western 
forests, ” the naturalist wrote, “approached the 
igantic. His chest was broad, and prominent; his 
= powers displayed themselves in every 
limb; his countenance gave indication of his great 
courage, “enterprise and perseverance; and, when 
he spoke, the very motion of his lips brought the 
impression that whatever he gies could not be 
otherwise than strictly true.’ 
‘pen “Audubon spent.a night under Boone’s roof. He 
related afterwards that the old hunter, having r re- 
moved his hunting shirt, spread his blankets on the 


— 


io 


280 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


floor and lay down there to sleep, saying that he 
found it more comfortable than a bed. A striking 
sketch of Boone is contained in a few lines penned. 
by one of his earliest biographers: “He had what 
phrenologists would have considered a a model hea qd 
— with a forehead peculiarly high, noble anc and be bold fi 
thin compressed lips, a mild clear blue eye, a larg 
and prominent chin and a general expression of 
countenance in which fearlessness and « courage sat 
enthroned and which told the beholder at a glance 
what he had been and was formed to be.” In 
criticizing the various portraits of Daniel, the same 
writer says: ‘“They want the high port and nobl . 
daring of his countenance. ... Never was ol | 


as? more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His 


years into iron.” q 
» Although we are indebted to these and othe 7 
early chroniclers for many details of Boone’s life, 
there was one event which none of his biographers. 
has related; yet we know that it must have take vi, 
place. Even the bare indication of it is found 
only in the narrative of the adventures of tw 7 
other explorers. fe 
It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men 
came to Boone’s Settlement, as La Charette was’ 


J jut BOONE’S LAST DAYS 281 
. generally called. They had planned to make 
winter camp there, for in the spring, when the 
fissouri rose to the flood, they and their company 
'frontiersmen were to take their way up that un- 
arted stream and over plains and mountains 
quest of the Pacific Ocean. They were refused 
srmission by the “Spanish authorities to camp at 
oone’s Settlement: so they lay through the winter 
me forty miles distant on the Illinois side of the 
lississippi, across from the mouth of the Missouri. 
ince the records are silent, we are free to picture 
; we choose their coming to the settlement during 
le winter and again in the spring, for we know 
lat they came. 
We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made 
Mf a Charette on some sparkling day when the 
ost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing 
ze of diamond points. We can see the friendly 
rench habitants staring after the two young 
aders and their men — all mere boys, though 
uey were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen — 
ith their bronzed faces of English cast, as in their 
ayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through the 
amlet to pay their respects to the Syndic. We 
ay think of that dignitary as smoking his pipe be- 
re his fireplace, perhaps; or making out, in his 


Bi, 


ey te! ‘i 
ERs Oe 33) 
7 


982 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST ~ 


fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive court — 
for instance, that he had on that day given Pier, 
a dozen hickory thwacks, “well laid on,”’ for start 
ing a brawl with Antoine, and had bestowed th 


same upon Antoine for continuing the brawl with) 
Pierre. A knock at the door would bring the ami= 
able invitation to enter, and the two young mel 
would step across his threshold, while their fol 
lowers crowded about the open door and haile¢ 
the old pathfinder. d 

One of the two leaders — the dark slender mat 
with a subtle touch of the dreamer in his resolut 
face — was a stranger; but the other, with the mor 
practical mien and the shock of hair that gave hin 
the name of Red Head among the tribes, Boon | 
had known as a lad in Kentucky. To Daniel a ne | 
this young visitor the encounter would be a simple 
meeting of friends, heightened in pleasure and 
interest somewhat, naturally, by the adventur 
in prospect. But to us there is something vas 
in the thought of Daniel Boone, on his last fron 
tier, grasping the hands of William Clark ane 
Meriwether Lewis. | 4 

As for the rough and hearty mob at the door 
Daniel must have known not a few of them well 
though they had been children in the days when) 


| BOONE’S LAST DAYS 288 
he and William Clark’s brother strove for Ken- 
tucky. It seems fitting that the soldiers with this 
expedition should have come from the garrison at 
Kaskaskia; since the taking of that fort in 1778 by 
George Rogers ( Clark had opened the western way 
from the Botadarics es Kentucky to the Missis- 
sippi. And among the young Kentuckians enlisted 
by William Clark were sons of the sturdy fighters 
of still an earlier border line, Clinch and Holston Val- 
ley men who had adventured under another Lewis 
at Point Pleasant. Daniel would recognize in these 
— such as Charles Floyd — the young kinsmen of 
his old-time comrades whom he had preserved from 
starvation in the Kentucky wilderness by the kill 
from his rifle as they made their long march home 
after Dunmore’s War. 

In May, Lewis and Clark’s pirogues ascended 
the Missouri and the leaders and men of the ex- 
pedition spent another day in La Charette. Once 
again, at least, Daniel was to watch the westward 
departure of pioneers. In 1811,-when the Astorians 
passed, one of their number pointed to the im- 
mobile figure of “an old man on the bank, who, 
he said, was Daniel Boone.”’ 


Sometimes the aged pioneer’s mind cast forward 


284 PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 


to his last journey, for which his advancing yea 
were preparing him. He wrote on the subject to 
sister, in 1816, revealing in a few simple lines th 
the faith whereby he had crossed, if not more lite 
ally removed, mountains was a fixed star, and th 
he looked ahead fearlessly to the dark trail he mu 
tread by its single gleam. Autumn was tinting tl 
forest and the tang he loved was in the air when t] 
great hunter passed. The date of Boone’s death 
given as September 26, 1820. He) was ‘im'his eight 
sixth year . Unburdened. by the pangs o qisea 
he went out serenely, by the apie, mathe of slee 
into the new country. | 
The convention for drafting the constit ‘ 
Missouri, in session at, St.Louis, adjourned for 
day, and for twenty days thereafter the membe 
wore crape on their arms as a further mark 
respect for the great pioneer. Daniel was: laid 
Rebecca’s side, on the bank be Teugue e 
about a mile from the Missouri River.) In 1845, 1 
Missouri legislators hearkened to oft-repeated ple 
from Kentucky and surrendered the remains of i 
pioneer couple. Their bones lie now in Frankfol 
the capital of the once Dark and Bloody Grou 
and in 1880 a monument was raised oe 


To us it seems -rather, that Kentucky itse 


BOONE’S LAST DAYS 285 


e’s monument; even as-those.other a corn 
Tllinois and Indiana, a are Clark’: s. There, 
tese two servants unafraid, who sacrificed with- 
1t measure in the wintry winds of man’s ingrati- 
de, are each year memorialized anew; when the 
th in summer — the season when the red man 

ghtered — lifts u up the full grain in the ear, the 
eiing com; and when autumn smiles in gold- 


ce over the stubble fields, where the reaping 
ad binding machines have hummed a nation’s 


arvest song. 


Bs We Hel ian ‘ade 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


Tue Racks AND THEIR MIGRATION 


_. C. A. Hanna, The Scotch-Irish, 2 vols. New York, 
1902. A very full if somewhat over-enthusiastic study. 
_ H.J. Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America. Princeton, 
1915. Excellent. 
DA. G. Spangenberg, Extracts from his Journal of 
travels in North Carolina, 1752. Publication of the 
Southern History Association. Vol. 1, 1897. 
‘ A.B. Faust, The German Element in the United States, 
2 vols. (1909). 

J. P. MacLean, An Historical Account of the Settle- 
ments of Scotch Highlanders in America (1900). 
_ $. H. Cobb, The Story of the Palatines (1897). 
_N. D. Mereness (editor), Travels in the American 
Colonies. New York, 1916. This collection contains 
the diary of the Moravian Brethren cited in the first 
chapter of the present volume. 


Lire IN THE Back Country 


_ Joseph Doddridge, Notes on the Settlements and Indian 
Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, 
from 1763 to 1783. Albany, 1876. An intimate descrip- 
tion of the daily life of the early settlers in the Back 
Country by one of themselves. 

287 


288 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


J. F. D. Smyth, Tour in the United States of America, 
2vols. London, 1784. Minute descriptions of the Back 
Country and interesting pictures of the life of the set- 
tlers; biased as to political views by Royalist sympathies. 

William H. Foote, Sketches of North Carolina, New 
York, 1846. See Foote also for history of the first 
Presbyterian ministers in the Back Country. As to 
political history, inaccurate. 


Earty History AND EXPLORATION 


J.S. Bassett (editor), The Writings of Colonel William 
Byrd of Westover. New York, 1901. A contemporary 
record of early Virginia. 

Thomas Walker, Journal of an Exploration in the 
Spring of the Year 1750. Boston, 1888. The record of 
his travels by the discoverer of Cumberland Gap. 

William M. Darlington (editor), Christopher Gist’s 
Journals. Pittsburgh, 1893. Contains Gist’s account 
of his surveys for the Ohio Company, 1750. 

C. A. Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, 2 vols. New 
York, 1911. An exhaustive work of research, with full 
accounts of Croghan and Findlay. See also Croghan’s 
and Johnson’s correspondence in vol. vu, New York 
Colonial Records. 

James Adair, The History of the American Indians, etc. 
London, 1775. The personal record of a trader who was 
one of the earliest explorers of the Alleghanies and of the 
Mississippi region east of the river; a many-sided work, 
intensely interesting. 

C. W. Alvord, The Genesis of the Proclamation of 17 63. 
Reprinted from Canadian Archives Report, 1906. A 
new and authoritative interpretation. In this connec- 
tion see also the correspondence between Sir Willia 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 289 


Johnson and the Lords of Trade in vol. vit of New York 
Colonial Records. 

Justin Winsor, The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle 
in ‘America between England and France. Cambridge, 
1895. Presents the results of exhaustive research and 
the codrdination of tacts by an historian of broad in- 
tellect and vision. 

Colonial and State Records of North Carolina. 30 vols. 
The chief fountain source of the early history of North 
Carolina and Tennessee. 

W. H. Hoyt, The Mecklenburg Declaration of In- 
dependence. New York, 1907. This book presents the 
view generally adopted by historians, that the alleged 
Declaration of May 20, 1775, is spurious. 

Justin Winsor (editor), Narrative and Critical History 
of America. 8 vols. (1884-1889). Also The Westward 
Movement. Cambridge, 1897. Both works of incalcu- 
lable value to the student. 

C. W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Poli- 
tics. 2 vols. Cleveland, 1917. A profound work of 
great value to students. 


KENTUCKY 


R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg (editors), Docu- 
mentary History of Dunmore’s War, 1774. Compiled 
from the Draper Manuscripts in the library of the 
Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison, 1905. A col- 
lection of interesting and valuable decuments with a 
suggestive introduction. 

R. G. Thwaites, Daniel Boone. New York, 1902. 
A short and accurate narrative of Boone’s life and ad- 
ventures compiled from the Draper Manuscripts and 
from earlier printed biographies. 


rg 


290 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


John P. Hale, Daniel Boone, Some Facts and Inci-— 
dents not Hitherto Published. A pamphlet giving an ac- 
count of Boone in West Virginia. Printed at Wheeling, — 
West Virginia. Undated. ‘ 

Timothy Flint, The First White Man of the West or ; 
the Life and Exploits of Colonel Dan’l Boone. Cincin- q 
nati, 1854. Valuable only as regards Boone’s later years. — 

John S. C. Abbott, Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Ken- ; 
tucky. New York, 1872. Fairly accurate throughout. — 

J. M. Peck, Daniel Boone (in Sparks, Library of § 
American Biography. Boston, 1847). 

William Henry Bogart. Daniel Boone and the H: inten 
of Kentucky. New York, 1856. 

William Hayden English, Conquest of the Country — 
Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778-1783, and Life of Gen- 
eral George Rogers Clark, 2 vols. Indianapolis, 1896. 
An accurate and valuable work for which the author 
has made painstaking research among printed and un- 
printed documents. Contains Clark’s own account of 
his campaigns, letters he wrote on public and personal 


matters, and also letters from contemporaries in defense 
of his reputation. 


Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, 4 vols. 
New York, 1889-1896. A vigorous and spirited narrative. 


TENNESSEE 


J. G. M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee. Charles- 
ton, 1853. John Haywood, The Civil and Political 
History of the State of Tennessee. Nashville, 1891. 
(Reprint from 1828.) These works, with the North 
Carolina Colonial Records, are the source books of 
early Tennessee. In statistics, such as numbers of In- 
dians and other foes defeated by Tennessee heroes, not — 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 291 


reliable. Incorrect as to causes of Indian wars during the 
Revolution. On this subject see letters and reports by 
John and Henry Stuart in North Carolina Colonial Rec- 
ords, vol. x; and letters by General Gage and letters and 
proclamation by General Ethan Allen in American Ar- 
chives, Fourth Series, vol. 11, and by President Rutledge 
of South Carolina in North Carolina Colonial Records, 


_yol.x. Seealso.Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement. 


J. Allison, Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History. 
Nashville, 1897. Contains interesting matter relative 


"to Andrew Jackson in his younger days as well as about 


other striking figures of the time. 

F. M. Turner, The Life of General John Sevier. New 
York, 1910. A fairly accurate narrative of events in 
which Sevier participated, compiled from the Draper 


— Manuscripts. 


A. W. Putnam, History of Middle Tennessee, or Life 
and Times of General James Robertson. Nashville, 1859. 
A rambling lengthy narrative containing some interest- 
ing material and much that is unreliable. Its worst 
fault is distortion through sentimentality, and indul- 
gence in the habit of putting the author’s rodomontades 
into the mouths of Robertson and other characters. 

J.S. Bassett, Regulators of North Carolina, in Report 
of the American Historical Association, 1894. 

L. C. Draper, King’s Mountain and its Heroes. Cin- 
cinnati, 1881. The source book on this event. Con- 
tains interesting biographical material about the men 
engaged in the battle. 


FRENCH AND SPANISH INTRIGUES 


Henry Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France 
« Pétablissement des Etats-Unis d Amérique, 5 vols. 


292 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


Paris, 1886-1892. A complete exposition of the — 
French and Spanish policy towards America during theq 
Revolutionary Period. 

Manuel Serrano y Sanz, El brigadier Jaime Wilkinson . 
y sus tratos con a para la independencia del Ken- i 
tucky, afios 1787 & 1797. Madrid, 1915. A’ Spanish — 
view of Wilkinson’s intrigues with Spain, based on — ; 
letters and reports in the Spanish Archives. 

Thomas Marshall Green, The Spanish Conspiracy. 
Cincinnati, 1891. A good local account, from American 
sources. The best material on this subject is found in — 
Justin Winsor’s The Westward Movement and Narrative 
and Critical History because there viewed against a 
broad historical background. See Winsor also for the 
Latin intrigues in Tennessee. For material on Alexan- 
der McGillivray see the American Archives and the 
Colonial Records of Georgia. 

Edward S. Corwin, French Policy and the American 
Alliance of 1778. Princeton, 1916. Deals chiefly with 
the commercial aspects of French policy and should be 
read in conjunction with Winsor, Jay, and Fitzmaurice’s 
Life of William, Earl of Shelburne. 3 vols. London, — 
1875. 

John Jay, On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83 as 
Illustrated by the Secret Correspondence of France and 
England. New York, 1888. A paper read before the 
American Historical Association, May 23, 1887. 


ity ple “gor 


INDEX 


Abingdon (Penn.), Boone family 
at, 25 

Adair, James, pioneer trader, 

, 59-74, 158 (note) 

Alabama, Creek nation in, 57 

Alabama, Fort, French at, 57, 

—6«668 

Alamance, Battle of the, 104 

Allaire, Lieutenant, officer under 
Ferguson, 200, 213 

Allen, General Ethan, tries to 
enlist Indian aid in Canada, 
176 (note) 

Alvord, C. W., The Mississippi 
Valley in British Politics, cited, 
110 (note), 113 (note) 

American Archives, cited, 8 
(mote), 123 (note), 176 (note) 

Anne, Queen, invites Palatines to 
England, 15 

“Apostle, The,’’ Count Zinzen- 
dorf, Moravian leader, 16-17 

Attakullakulla, Cherokee states- 
man, 133 

Audubon, J. J., and Boone, 279- 
280 

Avery, Waightstill, 162 


Baker, John, 
Boone, 95 
Bean (or Been), William, erects 

first cabin on Watauga River, 
159 
Beautiful River, 125, 274 
Big Bone Lick, Boone finds, 
102 
Big Turtle, name given Boone 
_ by Indians, 145 


companion to 


Black Fish, Shawanoe chief, 
145, 146, 147, 148 

Bledsoe, Captain Anthony, 121, 
125 (note), 149 

Blount, William, Governor of 
Tennessee, 265 

Blue Licks (Ky.), 97, 102, 143; 
battle at, 152 

Bluff Hector, nickname for Hec- 
tor MacNeill, 12 

Bogart, W. H., Daniel Boone and 
the Hunters of Kentucky, cited, 
135 (note) 

Boone, Albert Gallatin, grand- 
son of Daniel, 278 (note) 

Boone, Daniel, nationality, 24— 
25; family, 24-26, 27-28; born 
(1734), 26; early life, 26-27; 
journey to North Carolina, 
29-30; home on the Yadkin, 
48; Findlay and, 52-53, 83, 
90, 97, 98, 100, 131-32; in 
Braddock’s campaign, 83; 
marriage, 90-91; in Virginia, 
92; removes to North Carolina, 
92; carving on tree, 93; with 
Waddell’s rangers, 93; travels 
to Florida, 94; first expedition 
into Kentucky, 95-97; second 
Kentucky expedition, 97-103; 
lonely explorations, 101-02; 
personal characteristics, 105- 
106; removes family to Powell’s 
Valley, 106-09; part in Dun- 
more’s war, 120-22, 128; and 
Henderson’s venture, 129, 130 
(note), 131, 133, 134-36; at 
Boonesborough, 140-41, 143, 


293 


294 


Boone, Daniel—Continued 
147-49; captured by Indians, 
144-47; adopted by Indian 
chief, 145; and Hamilton, 
145-46; goes to West Virginia, 
156; last days, 273 et seq. 

Boone, Daniel Morgan, son of 
Daniel, 278 (note) 

Boone, Edward, brother of Dan- 
jel, 152 

Boone, George, grandfather of 
Daniel, 24-25 

Boone, George, Jr., uncle of Dan- 
iel, 25 


Boone, Israel, second son of 
Daniel, 152 
Boone, James, eldest son of 


Daniel, 93, 107-08 


Boone, Jemima, daughter of 
Daniel, 141 

Boone, John, son of Daniel, 
106 


Boone, Nathan, son of Daniel, 
278 

Boone, Rebecca, wife of Daniel, 
91, 107, 278 

Boone, Sam, brother of Daniel, 


27 
Boone, Sarah, daughter of 
George, 25 


Boone, Sarah Morgan, mother 
of Daniel, 26, 28-29 

Boone, Squire, brother of Daniel, 
100, 102 

Boone, Squire, father of Daniel, 
25, 91; marriage, 26; expelled 
from Society of Friends, 28; 
leaves Pennsylvania, 28-29 

Boone’s Fort, 137 

Boone’s Settlement (La Char- 
ette), 280-81; see also La 
Charette 

Boonesborough, ‘Transylvania 
settlement, 138, 142, 245; 
Boone in, 140-41, 143, 147- 
149; Indian attacks on, 146-48; 
Robertson goes to, 246 

Bowman, John, 149 

“Braddock’s Defeat,” 82 


INDEX 


Branching Oak of the Forest — 
(Tach-nech-dor-us), Indian © 
chief, 119 4 

Brandywine, Battle of, Fergu- 
son in, 197 i 

Broglie, Comte de, French agent — 
in America, 249 ‘| 

Brown, Widow, at whose inn — 
Sevier is arrested, 241 ; 

Brown, Dr. Samuel, Clark’s 
letter to, 127 (note) 

Bryan, Joseph, father of Rel 
becca Boone, 91 q 

Bryan, Rebecca, marries Daniel ~ 
Boone, 91; see also Boone, — 
Rebecca 

Bryan party on expedition to 
Kentucky, 107, 108 

Buffalo (Tenn.), Court at, 257 

Bull, Colonel William, pioneer 
trader, 55 

Bullitt, Captain Thomas, 113, 
121 


Caldwell, David, Presbyterian 
minister, 162 
Calloway, Flanders, son-in-law 
of Daniel Boone, 277, 278 
Calloway, Richard, daughters 
captured by Indians, 141; 
accuses Boone of treachery, 
146 (note) 
Cameron, Alexander, British 
agent to Cherokees, 170, 174, 
176 (note) 
Camp Union (Lewisburg), ren- 
dezvous for expedition 
Dunmore’s War, 115 
Campbell, Major Arthur, 121-22, 
125 (note), 236 
Campbell, David, judge i in Ten- 
nessee, 237, 240 
Campbell, Rev. James, 50 i 
Campbell, Colonel William, at 
battle of Point Pleasant, 124 
(note); and King’s Moun: ain, 
205, 211, 219, 222 
Carolinas, Cherokees in, 57; 
Regulation Movement in, 159- 


INDEX 


‘Carolinas—Continued 

’ 164; see also North Carolina, 
South Carolina 

Carson, Kit, grandson of Daniel 
Boone, 278 (note) 

Catawba Indians, 36, 57 

Céloron de Blainville, '77 

Chads Ford, Ferguson’s account 
of incident at, 198-99 

Charleston (S. C.), Scotch-Irish 
‘in, 6 

Cherokee Indians, in the Yadkin, 
86; location and number, 57; 
and Adair, 58-74; customs, 

_ 62; and French, 66-68; Priber 
compiles dictionary, 69; in 
French and Indian Wars, 83- 
87; Indian policy of South Car- 
olina, 84-86; treaty with Eng- 
lish (1761), 87, 118; trouble 
in Kentucky, 114; Henderson 
purchases land from, 130-33; 
in Tennessee, 158, 228, 255; 
South Carolina sends ammuni- 
tion to, 177; peace made 
(1777), 183; attack Watauga, 
926-27, 228; North Carolina 
and, 232; McGillivray and, 
957; forced westward, 271 

Chickamaugan Indians, 173 

Chickasaw Indians, location, 57; 
Adair and, 58, 59, 62, ‘72-73, 
946; in Tennessee, 158; Mc- 
Gillivray and, 257; forced 
westward, 271 

Chillicothe, Indian town, 146, 

- 153 

Choctaw Indians, location, 57; 
and French, 58; Adair and, 
63; McGillivray and, 257; 
forced westward, 271 


Choiseul, Etienne Francois, Duc 
de, French Minister, 249 

Chota, deputation of Indians at, 
178; Robertson as Indian 
agent at, 183 

‘Chronicle, Colonel, 209 

Civil War, part of mountaineers 
in, 224 


295 


Clark, G. R., 283, 285; in ‘“‘ Cre- 
sap’s War,” 116-17; with 
Dunmore’s forces, 125 (note); 
and Chief Logan, 127 (note); 
at Harrodsburg, 129, 139, 151- 
152; and Harrodsburg Remon- 
strance, 140; brings ammuni- 
tion from Virginia, 142; made 
a major, 149; founds Louis- 
ville, 150; builds Fort Jeffer- 
son, 150; war on Indians, 153, 
262; letter to Governor of Vir- 
ginia, 154; later life, 155; 
death (1818), 155; and Wilkin- 
son, 262-64; personal char- 
acteristics, 263 

Clark, William, brother of G. R., 
155; Lewis and, 282 

Clark, Elijah, 212 

Cleveland, Colonel, at King’s 
Mountain, 209, 220, 222 

Cocke, William, 238 

Colbert, white leader of Indians, 
150-51 

Connolly, Dr. John, Dunmore’s 
agent, 113 (note) 

Cooley, William, accompanies 
Boone to Kentucky, 98, 100 
Cooper, J. F., on Ferguson’s 
story of Washington, 199 

(note) 

Cornstalk, Shawanoe chief, 118, 
123-24, 126 

Cornwallis, Edward, 195, 196, 
202, 213, 214, 222, 228, 229 

Corporation Acts, 4 

Cowpens, frontiersmen at, 215; 
Morgan’s victory at, 222 

Craighead, Rev. Alexander, Pres- 
byterian minister, 8, 162 

Creek Indians, disclose Spanish 
plot, 55; location, 57; and 
McGillivray, 58-59, 255-56; 
forced westward, 271 

Cresap, Captain Michael, of 
Maryland, 116,117, 127 

“Cresap’s War,”’ 117 

Croghan, George, “King of 
Traders,’ 58, 112-13, 115, 118 


296 


Cross Creek (Fayetteville), Mac- 
Neill at, 12 

Culloden, victory of, 9, 11 

Cumberland, Duke of, directs 
extermination of Gaels, 11 

Cumberland Gap, Findlay leads 
Boone through, 52-53; Boone 
robbed in, 103 

Cutbirth .(or Cutbird), Benja- 
min, nephew of Daniel Boone, 
95 


Dartmouth, Lord, Secretary for 
the Colonies, letters to, 6, 175, 
176 (note) 

Day, Sarah, marries Sam Boone, 
Q7 

De Lancey, Major, father-in- 
law of J. F. Cooper, 199 
(note) 

De Peyster, Captain, officer un- 
der Ferguson, 200, 218, 219 
Delassus, Lieutenant Governor 

of Upper Louisiana, 276 

Delaware Indians, 178; location, 
57; and French, 58; and Dun- 
more’s War, 114, 118 

Dequindre, French Canadian 
leader of Indian band, 143, 
147-48 

Detroit, in hands of English, 87; 
Boone at, 145-46 

Dinwiddie, Robert, Lieutenant 
Governor of Virginia, 77-80, 81 

Doak, Rev. Samuel, 207, 235 

Dobbs, Arthur, Governor of 
North Carolina, 79, 86 

Dobbs, E. D., son of Governor, 
83 

Monelson, Captain John, 186; 
Journal, 187-93 

Dorchester, Lord, Governor of 
Canada, 265 

Dragging Canoe, Chickamau- 
gan chief, 133-34, 173, 179, 
180, 181, 183, 206, 229 

Draper, L. C., King’s Mountain 
and its Heroes, cited, 199 
(note), 204 (note), 213 (note) 


INDEX 


Dunmore, Lord, Governor of 
Virginia, 112 (mote), 113, 114- 
116, 118, 120, 123, 125, 1926, 
176 (note) 

Dunmore’s War, 114 e¢ seq. 

Duquesne, Fort, 81, 82, 87, 88 


English, W. H., Conquest of the 
Country Northwest of the River 
Ohio, cited, 127 (note) 


Falling, William, 173 

Fanning, Edmund, 
Lord Granville, 160 

Femme Osage Creek, Boone 
settles at, 274-75. 

Femme Osage Syndic, 275-77 

Ferguson, Dr.Adam, letter to, 198 

Ferguson, Major Patrick, as a 
soldier, 196-98; as a man, 
198-200; commands loyalists 
in Back Country, 200-06, 211; 
at King’s Mountain, 212-20; 
death, 219-20, 221 

Findlay, John, pioneer trader, 
and Daniel Boone, 52, 83, 90, 
97, 98, 100, 131-32; in Brad- 
dock’s campaign, 83; capt: 
by Shawanoes, 97, 131 

Fitzherbert, letter quoted, 25: 
(note) 

Fleming, William, 124 

Florida, Spanish and Indians in, 
55, 56; Boone explores, 94 

Floridablanca, Spanish Minister, 
250 

Floyd, John, Washington’s agent, 
113-14; and Boone, 121, 141 

Forbes, General, expedition i 
1759, 87 

France, Highlanders flee to, 9 
and Indians, 53, 54, 58, 178- 
179; possessions in Ameri 
56, 57; Adair’s account o 
struggles with French, 63 
Priber sent by, 66-70; Fren 
and Indian Wars, 75 et seq. 
attitude toward American i 
dependence, 248-53 


agent of 


INDEX 


Frankfort (Ky.), Daniel Boone’s 
grave in, 284 

Frankland, State of, 234-38; 
see also Franklin, State of 

Franklin, Benjamin, 238 

Franklin, State of, 238, 240, 
259, 260, 266; see also Frank- 
land, State of 

Frémont, J. C., 278 (note) 

French and Indian Wars, 75 et 


seq. 
Friends, Society of, expel Squire 
Boone, 28 ’ 
Furniture of the pioneers, 45- 
46 


Gaels, see Highlanders 

Gage, General Thomas, quoted, 
176 (note) 

Galphin, pioneer trader, 59, 256 

Gates, General, 202, 210, 221 

Gazette, Knoxville, Jackson’s let- 
ter in, 268 

Georgia, Creek nation in, 57; 
Tories in, 195; and State of 
Franklin, 238; and McGilli- 
vray, 256-57, 258 

Germain, Lord, and Stuart, 176 
(note), 177 

German Palatinate, persecution 
of Protestants in, 15 

German Reformed Church, 15 

Germans, in Virginia and North 
Carolina, 14-15; as immigrants, 
16 

Gibson, Major, 126 

Gibson, Colonel John, 117-18 

Girty, George, 143 

Girty, James, 143 

Gist, Christopher, 77, 78 

Glen, Governor of South Caro- 
lina, 63, 64; Indian policy, 


84 

Gottlob, Brother, Moravian 
leader, 19, 21, 23, 24 

Gower, Fort, 123 

Grant, Colonel James, 94 

Grantham, Lord, letter to, 252 
(note) 


| 


297 


Granville, Lord, Proprietor in 
North Carolina, Moravians 
purchase land from, 18; agents 
oppress people, 104, 159 

Great Meadows, Washington at, 
81 

Great Telliko, Cherokee town, 
62, 66, 69, 158 

Great War, part of mountaineers 
in, 224-25 

Greathouse, trader, 117 

Greene, General Nathanael, 221- 
222 

Greene, T. M., The Spanish 
Conspiracy, cited, 264 (note) 

Grube, Adam, Moravian Broth- 
er, 18; Journal, 19-24 

Guilford Court House, battle of, 
222 


Hamilton, Henry, British Gov- 
ernor at Detroit, 139, 145— 
146 

Hampbright, Colonel, 209 

Hanna, C. A., The Wilderness 
Trail, cited, 97 (note) 

Harding, Chester, and Boone, 
278-79 

Harrod, James, 139; establishes 
first settlement in Kentucky, 
110, 114, 121, 129; as surveyor, 
113; and MHenderson, 138; 
goes to Watauga for supplies, 
141-42; made a Captain, 149; 
accompanies Clark, 153 

Harrodsburg, 136, 142, 149, 
153, 245, 246; founded, 114, 
129; Remonstrance, 140, 151; 
Indian attacks on, 146 


| Henderson, J udge Richard, leader 


of Transylvania Company, 
130-40, 160, 184-85; Donel- 
son’s party meets, 193 

Henry, Patrick, Preston writes 
to, 125 

Heydt, Joist, 16 

Highlanders, in Revolutionary 
War, 8, 13-14; in North 
Carolina, 9; clan system, 10; 


298 


Highlanders—Continued 
characteristics, 10-12; and In- 
dians, 54-55; see also ei 
Trish 

Hill, William, 96 

Holden, Joseph, 98, 100 

Holston River settlement, 141, 
158, 159, 163, 176 

Honeycut, pioneer at Watauga, 
165 

Hooper, William, 160 

Houston, Rev. Samuel, 235 

Hoyt, W. H., The Mecklenburg 
Declaration of Independence, 
cited, 8 (note) 

Huguenots in America, 54 

Hunter, James, 164 

Husband, Hermon, 
164 


161, 163, 


Illinois, Clark’s troops, 124, 125 
(note), 283; Robertson jour- 
neys to, 185; and Clark, 285 

“Indian Summer,” origin of 
term, 41 

Indiana and Clark, 285 

Indians, relation to white men in 
West, 38-43; use of hickory, 
45; and the traders, 52 et seq.; 
and French, 53, 54, 58, 178- 
179; and Spanish, 53, 54, 55, 
255; Boone and, 101-02, 
103; Dunmore’s War, 114 et 
seg.; “‘Cresap’s War,” 117; 
treachery toward, 117-18; 
purchase of land from, 131- 
134; trouble in Kentucky, 
135-36, 139, 143, 152-53; 
see also names of tribes 

Treland, Scotch-Irish from, -6; 
see also Ulster Plantation 

Troquois Indians, location, 57; 
loyalty to English, 58; Cro- 
ghan and, 118; cede Kentucky 
to British, 132; see also Six 
Nations 


Jackson, Andrew, 243, 266 
Jay, John, On the Peace Negoti- 


INDEX 


ations of 1782-1783 as illus- 
trated by the Secret Gnd 
spondence of France and ; 
land, cited, 252 (note) 
Jefferson, Thomas, and navi 
Seren dies of Mississippi River, 
F : 
Jefferson, Fort, 150, 151 
Jennings, Mrs., Donelson’s ac- 
count of, 188, 190, 191 be 
Johnson, Sir William, and Iro- 
quois Indians, 58, 179; an 
sale of Indian Jand, 111 


North Carolina, 9 
Jonesborough (Tenn.), county 
seat of Washington, 184; dele- 
gates meet to form State, 233; 
court at, 237; Andrew Jack- 
son at, 266 


Kalb, Johann, French agent in 
America, 249 { 
Kansas, Daniel Boone in, 277 
Kenton, Simon, 125 (note), 

143 i 
Kentucky, meaning of name, 95 
(note); Boone’s first expe 
tion to, 95-97; expedition 
Boone and Findlay into, 97- 
103; settlement and Indian 
troubles, 104-56; admitted as 
State (1792), 156; and Miss 
sippi River, 254; as Boone’s 
monument, 284; bibliography y; 
289-90 a 
Keppoch, Laird of, legend con- 
cerning, 11 oe 
King, trader, 117, 118 . 
King’s Mountain, Battle of, 
214-21 
Knoxville (Tenn.), Sevier and 
Jackson in, 268; Sevier burie 
in, 269-70 


La Charette (Mo.), Boone at, 
274-75, 281; see also spire 's 
Settlement 

Le Boeuf, Fort, 79 


Macdonald, Allan, 


INDEX 


Lewis, Colonel Andrew, 114-15, 
122-23, 124 (note), 158 

Lewis, Colonel Charles, 
124 

Lewis, Meriwether, 282, 283 

Logan, Mingo chief Tach-nech- 
dor-us, 119, 120, 126-27 

Logan, Benjamin, 125 (note), 
135, 136, 141-42, 149 

Long Hunters, 103 

Loudon, Fort, 158 

Louisbourg in hands of English, 


115, 


87 

Louisville, Findlay reaches site 
of, 97; Clark founds, 150; 
Wilkinson at, 262 

Lulbegrud Creek, 100 

Lutheran Church, 15 

Luzerne, French Ambassador at 
Philadelphia, 251 

Lytle, Captain, 203-04 

Lytle, Mrs., and Ferguson, 204 

Lyttleton, Governor of South 
Carolina, 85 


McAden, Rev. Hugh, of Phila- 
delphia, 50 

McAfee, James, 136 

MeAfee brothers, 113, 136 

McDowell, Colonel Charles, 200- 
201, 202, 206, 210, 211-12, 213, 
9A3, 

McDowell, Joseph, 243 

McGillivray, Alexander, Creek 
chief, 59, 255-61 

McGillivray, Lachlan, father of 
Alexander, 58-59, 256, 257 

McGregor, William, 9 

of Kings- 
borough, 14 

MacDonald, Flora, 14 

MacLean, J. P., An Historical 
Account of the Settlement of 
Scotch Highlanders in America, 
cited, 11 (note) 

MacNeill, Hector, (Bluff Hec- 
tor), 12 

MacNeill, Neil, 
12 


of Kintyre, 


299 

Mansker, Gasper, 103, 185 

Marion, General Francis, 229 

Martin, Josiah, Royal Governor 
of North Carolina, 13 

Mecklenburg Declaration of In- 
dependence, 8 

Mereness, N. D., ed., Travels in 
the American Colonies, cited, 
18 (note) 

Mingo Indians, 114, 117, 118, 
119-20, 126 

Miré, Don Estevan, Governor of 
Louisiana, 254-55, 259, 260- 
261 

Mississippi (State), Choctaws in, 
63 


Mississippi River, French terri- 
tory on, 56; Choctaws on, 57; 
Stewart’s party reaches, 95; 
Spain refuses right of navi- 
gation of, 253-54 

Missouri, Boone settles in, 274; 
Boone dies in, 284 

Mobile, French hold, 57 

Mohawk Indians, 178, 179 

Montgomery, John, 125 (note) 

Montreal in hands of English, 
87 

Mooney, James, 98, 100 

Moore’s Fort, Boone commands, 
122 

Moravians, 15, 16-24 

Morgan, Daniel, 125 (note), 222 

Morgan, Sarah, marries Squire 
Boone, 26; see also Boone, 
Sarah Morgan 

Morgantown (N. C.), 
sent to, 242-44 

Mountain Leader (Opomingo), 
Indian chief, 247 

Mountaineers of the South, 223- 
Q24 

Miiller, Adam, 16 

Musgrove’s Mill, 
at, 202 


Sevier 


engagement 


Nantuca Indians, deputation of 
warriors from, arrive at Chota, 
178 


300 

Nash, General Francis, 163, 186 
(note) 

Nashborough, Nashville first 
named, 186 


Nashville, founded, 186; Andrew 
Jackson at, 266; Robertson 
buried at, 270 

Nathanael, Brother, one of the 
Moravian Brethren, 21 

Navigation Acts and Ireland, 
4 

Necessity, Fort, 81 

Neely, Alexander, 100 

New France, 87, 88 

New Market (Va.), Sevier founds, 
167 

Nolan, aids Wilkinson, 264 

“Nolichucky Jack,” nickname 
of John Sevier, 184; see also 
Sevier 

North Carolina, Scotch-Irish i in, 
7; Craighead in, 8; Highland- 
ers in, 12-13; Moravians in, 
18; journey of Moravian Breth- 
ren into, 19-24; rainfall, 43; 
pioneer homes in, 45-47; in 
French and Indian Wars, 82- 
83, 86; Indian policy, 83-84; 
Daniel Boone in, 92; Regu- 
lation Movement, 104, 137, 
159-64; Transylvania Com- 
pany formed in, 129-30; emi- 
grants go to Tennessee, 159; 
Robertson from, 165; bound- 
ary line, 170, 185, 186; Wa- 
tauga petitions for annexation, 
171-72; erects Washington 
County, 172; Colonial Records, 
cited, 176 (note), 177 (note); 
sends out Robertson as Indian 
agent, 183; Ferguson in, 203; 
Ferguson’s proclamation to, 
212-13; Cornwallis expected 
to retreat through, 228; reso- 
lution of gratitude to over- 


mountain men, 230; cedes 
overmountain territory to 
United States, 231-33; and 


State of Frankland, 234, 236- 


INDEX 


237, 238; and Sevier, 239, 240— 
245; and State of Franklin, 
240; and Tennessee settle- 
ments, 259-60 

North Wales (Penn.), Boone 
family in, 25 


Oconostota, Cherokee chief, 118, 
132 

O'Fallon aids Wilkinson, 264 

Ohio, Clark against Indians of, 
151, 153 

Ohio Company, 77, 78, 81, 111- 
112 

Old Tassel, 
270 

Oley Township, Berks County 
(Penn.), George Boone at, 
25, 26 

Opimingo (Mountain Leader), 
Chickasaw chief, 247 

Oswego in hands of English, 
87 

Ottawa Indians, 118, 178 


Cherokee Indian, 


Palatines, see Germans 

Paris, Treaty of (1763), 94 

Patrick Henry, Fort, 186 

Penn, William, Boone seeks 
information from, 25 

Pennsylvania, Scotch-Irish in, 
1, 6; Germans in, 15, 16; 
Boone family in, 25-28; dis- 
putes Fort Pitt with Virginia, 
112 

“Pennsylvania Dutch,” 15 

“Pennsylvania Irish,” 6 

Peyton, Ephraim, one of Donel- 
son’s party, 189 

Peyton, Mrs. Ephraim, Donel- 
son’s account of, 188, 189, 190 


Philadelphia, Boone family 
reaches, 25 
Pickett, History of Alabama, 


cited, 257 (note) 
Piqua, Indian town, 153 
Pitfour, Lord, of Aberdeen, 

196 : 
Pitt, Fort, 88, 112-18, 115 


r 
; 


| 


INDEX 


Pittsburgh site a crucial point 
in 1754, 81 

Point Pleasant, Battle of, 123-24, 
164, 272 

Pontleroy, French secret agent 
in America, 249 

Powell’s Valley, 135; Boone’s 
journey to, 106, 107 

“Powwowing Days,” 41 

Presbyterian Church, and Scotch- 
Irish, 3; Charles I suppresses, 4 

Preston, Colonel William, 115, 

_ 120, 125 

Priber, French agent to Chero- 
kees, 66-70 

‘ Proclamation of 1763, 110-11, 
113, 170 

Puck-e-shin-wa, Shawanoe chief, 
125 

Pulaski, Count, 199 (note) 


Quaker Meadows, Sevier’s troops 
at, 209 
Quakers, see Friends, Society of 


Red Shoe, Choctaw chief, 63 

Regulation Movement, 104, 137, 
159-64 

Revolutionary War, Highlanders 
in, 13-14; Indian raids in 
Kentucky, 139; King’s Moun- 
tain, 195 et seq.; attitude of 
France and Spain in, 248 et 


seq. 
som Archibald, Governor of 

Tennessee, 267 

Robertson, James, “father of 
Tennessee,” 124-25 (note), 
133; at Watauga, 165-66, 170, 
181; personal characteristics, 
165; and Sevier, 167, 239; 
commands Wataugans, 172; 
Indian agent at Chota, 183; 
leads settlers into middle 
Tennessee, 185; founds Nash- 
ville, 186; and Ferguson, 195; 
and Indian war, 246, 255; 
characterizes McGillivray, 259; 
death (1814), 270 


301 


Robertson, Mrs. James, 246 

Robertson, Mark, 185 

Robinson, Colonel David, 149 

Rogers, John, 88 

Rogers, Joseph, 153 

Roosevelt, Theodore, The Win- 
ning of the West, cited, 134 
(note) 

Russell, William, 107, death of 
his son, 108 

Rutherford, Griffith, 163 

Rutledge, John, President of 
South Carolina, 176 (note) 


St. Asaph’s Station founded, 
136 

St. Augustine, Spanish at, 55, 56 

St. Vincent, Island of, Ferguson 
on, 197 

Sapperton, trader, 117 

Scotch-Irish, as immigrants, 1-2, 
6; characteristics, 2-3, 5-6; 
religion, 3, 4; persecution of, 
4-5; and American Independ- 
ence, 7-8; bibliography, 287; 
see also Highlanders 

Seven Years’ War, casus belli, 
76; in Europe, 82; land prom- 
ised to soldiers of, 113; 
Ferguson in, 196 

Sevier, John, 133; probably seen 
by Brother Grube, 20-21; 
marriage, 48; at Watauga, 
166-67, 169, 170, 171; and 
New Market, 167; and Robert- 
son, 167, 168, 239; personal 
characteristics, 168-69; writes 
Virginia Committee, 173-74; 
and Indian troubles, 174, 181— 
183, 226-28; and “Bonnie 
Kate,” 182; nicknamed “‘ Noli- 
chucky Jack,”’ 184; and King’s 
Mountain, 200-01, 205-06, 
208 et seqg.; as a statesman, 
226 et seq.; feud with Tipton, 
227, 234, 239-40, 241, 267; 
elected Governor of Tennessee, 
265; and Jackson, 266-69; 
death (1815), 269 


302 


Sevier, John, Jr., 243 (note) 

Sevier,. Valentine, 125 (note) 

Shawanoe Indians, 178; location, 
57; and French, 58; Findlay 
a prisoner of, 97; and Boone, 
98-99, 108, 143-48; war with, 
114, 118, 123-26; relinquish 
right to Kentucky, 131; cap- 
ture girls from Boonesborough, 
141 

Shelby, Isaac, at battle of Point 
Pleasant, 124 (note); Colonel 
of Sullivan, 184; at King’s 
Mountain, 200 et seg.; moves 
to Kentucky, 230 

Sheltowee (Big Turtle), name 
given to Boone by Indians, 


145 

Sherrill, Bonnie Kate, wife of 
John Sevier, 182 

Six Nations, right to dispose of 
territory, 76; see also Iroquois 
Indians 

Social customs, of seaboard 
Sain 32; of pioneers, 32 et 


South Carolina, Yamasi Indians 
in, 56; and Cherokees, 177; 
Tories in, 195; see also Caro- 
linas 

Spain, and Indians, 53, 54, 55; 
attitude toward American in- 
dependence, 248-55; plots 
against United States, 255-65; 
State of Franklin and, 259 

Spangenburg, Bishop, 18 

Spanish Succession, War of 
(1701-13), 15 

Spencer, Judge, issues warrant 
for Sevier, 241 

Stanwix, Fort, treaty of (1768), 
132 

Stephen, Adam, 125 (note) 


Stewart, John, brother-in-law 
of Daniel Boone, 95, 98, 
100 


Stoner, Michael, 120, 121 
Stover, Jacob, husband of Sarah 
Boone, 25 


INDEX 


Stuart, ps deputy Indian 


agent, 1 

Stuart, Jckn, with Dunmore’s 
forces, 125 (note); British 
agent, 174, 176 (note); in 
Revolution, 229 

Sullivan County, formed from 


Washington County, 184; 
troops from, 201 
Sycamore Shoals, conference 


with Indians at (1775), 132- 
134, 170; troops mustered at, 
206 


Tach-nech-dor-us (Branching Oak 
of the Forest), Mingo chief, 


see Logan 
Tarleton, Sir Banastre, British 
officer, 218 


Taylor, Hancock, 113, 12] 
(note) 

Tecumseh, 125 

Tennessee, 157 et seq., 


name, 158 (note); and Missle 
sippi River navigation, 254; 
admitted as State (1796), 265; 
bibliography, 290-91; see also 
Frankland, Franklin, Wa- 
tauga 

Test Acts, 4 

Thomas, Isaac, trader, 173, 174, 
177, 178, 228 

Thwaites, R. G., Daniel Boone, 
cited, 25 (note); 276 (note); 
Documentary History of Dun- 
more’s War, cited, 125 (note) 

Tipton, Colonel John, feud with 
Sevier, 227, 234, 239-40, 241, 
267; judge for North Carolina, 
237 

Tipton, Jonathan, 226-27 

Todd, John, 149 

Tories, 195 

Traders among the pioneers, 52 
et seq. 

Traders’ Trace, 94 

Transylvania Company, 
140 

Trent, Captain William, 81 


130- 


eS ae = 


INDEX 


Tryon, William, Governor of 
North Carolina, 104, 160 

Tuckabatchee, Creek town, Se- 
vier buried at, 269 

Turner, F. M., Life of General 
John Sevier, cited, 243 (note) 


Ulster Plantation, 3-4 
Ulstermen, see Scotch-Irish 


Vergennes, Charles  Gravier, 
Comte de, French Minister, 
250, 251, 252 

Virginia, =a to the Ohio, 76- 
77; Indian policy, 83; Indians 
apply for redress to, 85; Daniel 
Boone in, 92; disputes Fort 
Pitt with Pennsylvania, 112; 
Harrodsburg Remonstrance, 
140; Clark and, 140, 142; and 
Boone, 141; and Mississippi 
River navigation, 254 

Virginia, Valley of, Miiller’s set- 
tlement in, 16 


Wachovia Tract, 18 

Waddell, Hugh, of North Caro- 
lina, in French and Indian 
wars, 86, 87; erects fort on 
Holston, 158; and Regulation 
Movement, 163 

Walpole Company, 112 

War of 1812, part of mountain- 
eers in, 224 

Ward, James, 95 

Ward, Nancy, half-caste Chero- 

_ kee prophetess, 174, 177 

Warriors’ Path, 107, 132, 134, 
186 

Washington, George, journeys 
to Fort Le Beeuf, 79; at 
Great Meadows, 81; “Brad- 
dock’s Defeat,” 82; surveys 
in Kentucky, 111; tries to 
secure land patents for sol- 
diers, 113; and Indian allies, 
176 (note); Ferguson’s story 
of, 199 


303 


Washington, District of, 233 

Washington County, erected by 
North Carolina, 172; divided, 
184 

Watauga Colony, lands leased to, 
134; Harrod and Logan get 
supplies from, 141-42; Wil- 
liam Bean builds first cabin, 
159; and Regulators, 163; 
Robertson at, 165-66, 170, 
181; Sevier at, 166-67, 169, 
200; found to be on Indian 
lands, 170; petitions North 
Carolina for annexation, 171-— 
172; made into Washington 
County, 172; Indian attacks 
on, 176, 181-83; and King’s 
Mountain, 200-01, 205; see also 
Frankland, Franklin, Tennes- 
see 

Wayne, Mad Anthony, 263 

Welsh in America, 54 

Wheeling (W. Va.), as rendez- 
vous for troops, 115; Cresap 
at, 116 

White Eyes, 
118 

Wilkinson, General James, 261- 
265 

Williams, Colonel, 209 

Williams, Jaret, 173 

Winchester, German settlement 
near, 16 

Winsor, Justin, The Westward 
Movement, quoted, 176 (note) 

Winston, Major, 176 (note) 

Woolwich, Ferguson studies at, 
197 

Wyandot Indians, 114 


Delaware chief, 


Yadkin Valley, Scotch-Irish in, 
7; Craighead in, 8; High- 
landers in, 12-13; Moravians 
in, 23; life in, 36, 47; hunting, 
43, 105; Boone’s home in, 48, 
90, 97; Presbyterian ministers 
in, 50 

Yamasi, Indians, 56; Massacre, 
55 


N OUTLINE OF THE PLAN OF 
HE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA 


The fifty titles of the Series fall into eight topical sequences or groups, 
each with a dominant theme of its own— 


ad 


I. The Morning of America 
TIME: 1492-1763 


HE theme of the first sequence is the struggle of nations for the 
possession of the New World. The mariners of four European king- 


doms—Spain, Portugal, France, and England—are intent upon the 
discovery of a new route to Asia. They come upon the American continent 
which blocks the way. Spain plants colonies in the south, lured by gold. 
France, in pursuit of the fur trade, plants colonies in the north. Englishmen, 
in search of homes and of a wider freedom, occupy the Atlantic seaboard. 
These Englishmen come in time to need the land into which the French 
have penetrated by way of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and a 
mighty struggle between the two nations takes place in the wilderness, 
ending in the expulsion of the French. This sequence comprises ten volumes: 


I, THE RED MAN’S CONTINENT, by Ellsworth Huntington 

2. THE SPANISH CONQUERORS, by Irving Berdine Richman 

3. ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS, by William Wood 

4- CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE, by William Bennett Munro 

§. PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTH, by Mary Fohnston 

6. THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND, by Charles M. Andrews 

7. DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON, by Maud Wilder Goodwin 
8. THE QUAKER COLONIES, by Sydney G. Fisher 

9. COLONIAL FOLKWAYS, by Charles M. Andrews 
10, THE CONQUEST OF NEW FRANCE, by George M. Wrong 


ica ae ee a 


Il. The Winning of Independence 
TIME: 1763-1815 


The French peril has passed, and the great territory between the All 
ghanies and the Mississippi is now open to the Englishmen on the seaboar« 


this question the War of the Revolution is fought; the Union is born | 
and the second war with England follows. Seven volumes: 


11. THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION, by Carl Becker 

12, WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES IN ARMS, by George M. on 
13. THE FATHERS OF THE CONSTITUTION, by Max Farrand 

14. WASHINGTON AND HIS COLLEAGUES, by Henry Jones Ford 

15. JEFFERSON AND HIS COLLEAGUES, by Allen Johnson 

16, JOHN MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION, by Edward S. Corwin 
17. THE FIGHT FOR A FREE SEA, by Ralph D. Paine 


III. The Vision of the West 


TIME: 1750-1890 


The theme of the third sequence is the American frontier—the conques' 
of the continent from the Alleghanies to the Pacific Ocean. The story cover 
nearly a century and a half, from the first crossing of the Alleghanies b 
the backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas (abou 
1750) to the heyday of the cowboy on the Great Plains in the latter par 
of the nineteenth century. This is the marvelous tale of the greatest migra 
tions in- history, told in nine volumes as follows: 


18, PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST, by Constance Lindsay Skinne 
19. THE OLD NORTHWEST, by Frederic Austin Ogg 

20, THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON, dy Frederic Austin Ogg 
21. THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, by Archer B. Hulbert 

22, ADVENTURERS OF OREGON, by Constance Lindsay Skinner 
23. THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS, by Herbert E. Bolton 

24. TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 
25. THE FORTY-NINERS, by Stewart Edward White 

26. THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER, by Emerson Hough 


‘ 


\ 
“ IV. The Storm of Secession 
TIME: 1830-1876 


The curtain rises on the gathering storm of secession. The theme of the 
fourth sequence is the preservation of the Union, which carries with it the 
extermination of slavery. Six volumes as follows: 


"97. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 
32. 


THE COTTON KINGDOM, 4y William E. Dodd 

THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE, by Fesse Macy 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 
THE DAY OF THE CONFEDERACY, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson 
CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL wAR, by William Wood 

THE SEQUEL OF APPOMATTOX, by Walter Lynwood Fleming 


V. The Intellectual Life 


Two volumes follow on the higher national life, telling of the nation’s great 
teachers znd interpreters: 


33- 
34. 


THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN EDUCATION, by Edwin E. Slosson 
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE, by Bliss Perry 


VI. The Epic of Commerce and Industry 


The sixth sequence is devoted to the romance of industry and business, 
and the dominant theme is the transformation caused by the inflow of 
immigrants and the development and utilization of mechanics on a great 
scale. The long age of muscular power has passed, and the era of mechanical 
power has brought with it a new kind of civilization. Eight volumes: 


35. OUR FOREIGNERS, Jy Samuel P. Orth 
36. THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE, by Ralph D. Paine 
| 37- THE AGE OF INVENTION, by Holland Thompson 
38. THE RAILROAD BUILDERS, by Fohn Moody 
39. THE AGE OF BIG BUSINESS, by Burton F. Hendrick 
40. THE ARMIES OF LABOR, by Samuel P. Orth 
4l. THE MASTERS OF CAPITAL, by Fohn Moody 
42. THE NEw souTH, by Holland Thompson 


VII. The Era of World Power 


The seventh sequence carries on the story of government and diplomacy” 
and political expansion from the Reconstruction (1876) to the present day, 
in six volumes: 


43- THE BOSS AND THE MACHINE, by Samuel P. Orth 

44. THE CLEVELAND ERA, by Henry Fones Ford 

45. THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE, by Solon F. Buck 

46. THE PATH OF EMPIRE, by Carl Russell Fish 

47. THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIMES, by Harold Howland 
48. WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR, by Charles Seymour i 


VIII. Our Neighbors 


Now to round out the story of the continent, the Hispanic peoples on 
the south and the Canadians on the north are taken up where they were 
dropped further back in the Series, and these peoples are followed down 
to the present day: 


49. THE CANADIAN DOMINION, by Oscar D. Skelton 
50. THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD, by William R. Shepherd 


The Chronicles of America is thus a great synthesis, giving a new projec- 
tion and a new interpretation of American History. These narratives are 
works of real scholarship, for every one is written after an exhaustive 
examination of the sources. Many of them contain new facts; some of them 
—such as those by Howland, Seymour, and Hough—are founded on inti- 
mate personal knowledge. But the originality of the Series lies, not chiefly 
in new facts, but rather in new ideas and new combinations of old facts. — 

The General Editor of the Series is Dr. Allen Johnson, Chairman of the 
Department of History of Yale University, and the entire work has been 
planned, prepared, and published under the control of the Council's 
Committee on Publications of Yale University. 


YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 


143 ELM STREET, NEW HAVEN 
§22 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 


AP. 


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